Abstract
Biomass has been demonstrated as a capable source of energy to fulfill the increasing demand for clean energy sources which could last a long time. Replacing fossil fuels with biomass-based ones can potentially lead to a reduction of carbon emissions, which is the main target of the EU climate strategy. Based on RED II (revised Renewable Energy Directive 2018/2001/EU) and the European Green Deal, biomass is a promising energy source for achieving carbon neutrality in the future. However, the sustainable potential of biomass resources in the forthcoming decades is still a matter of question. This review aims at estimating the availability of biomass for energy reasons in the EU, and to evaluate its potential to meet the coal power plant capacity of the main lignite-producer countries, including Germany, Poland and Greece. Plants in line with the sustainability criteria of RED II have been selected for the preliminary estimations concerning their full conversion to the biomass power concept. Furthermore, the various barriers to biomass utilization are highlighted, such as the stranded asset risk of a future coal phase-out scenario, biomass supply chain challenges, biomass availability in main lignite-producer EU countries, the existing full conversion technologies, and biomass cost. A variety of challenges in the scenario of lignite substitution with biomass in a plant are investigated in a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) analysis. Technological risks and issues should be tackled in order to achieve the coal phase-out EU goal, mainly with regard to the supply chain of biomass. In this direction, the development of logistics centers for the centralized handling of biomass is strongly recommended.
Highlights
The results proved that the boiler operational parameters are not affected by the co-firing operation
The erection of newly built biomass-to-power plants is costlier as compared to fossil fuel alternatives, because of higher investment and operational costs
Biomass repowering provides a low-cost solution to the transition to biomass-to-power technology, and it has been implemented in many installations globally
Summary
The EU has updated its energy policy framework, in order to achieve the transition away from fossil fuels towards cleaner energy, in line with the EU’s Paris Agreement commitments about the reduction of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The RED II, included in the Clean Energy for all Europeans package, came into force intending to keep the EU as the global leader in renewables Towards this direction, electricity produced from biomass fuels could be taken into account by all installations with a total rated thermal input lower than 50 MW, and in these with a total rated thermal input over 50 MW, which apply high-efficiency cogeneration technology or for only-electricity-producing, meeting specific technical demands. The shift to a low-carbon economy expounds opportunities, economic and social impacts in many coal regions should not be neglected, such as the utilization of capital assets (coal power plants), otherwise, they have to be abandoned In this case, biomass could play a significant role, in order to be used as a non-conventional fuel for these plants, keeping the infrastructure in operation even while most of the countries have announced the coal phase-out
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