Bioenergy technologies and biomass potential vary in Northern European countries

Abstract

Due to the geographical and economic conditions, northern European and, particularly, the Baltic Sea region (BSR) countries are especially predisposed to biomass production and bioenergy generation. Assuming the large diversity in biomass potential and bioenergy technologies among the countries, the purpose of this study was to assess the potential of biomass and characterise the development of bioenergy technologies in nine BSR countries (Denmark, Germany, Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Sweden and Norway). However, Russia was not included in our analyses since data complementary to the other BSR countries could not be obtained. The largest technical potential of agricultural biomass, manure and slurry was found to be in Germany and Poland. Sweden has the largest number of pellet production plants, but the highest production was found in Germany, which is the leading biogas producer among the analysed countries (92% of all biogas plants). The gross production of derived bioheat was the highest in Sweden. Germany had the highest final energy consumption of bioheat in all sectors. The current study found that bioenergy constitutes an important share in the renewable energy structure across the majority of the BSR countries and confirmed the large diversity in biomass potential and bioenergy technologies resulting from geographical location, land use structure, population size and other factors beyond this analysis. The northern European example is a good path to follow by other regions of the world and can help improve their bioenergy development efforts.