Economic and environmental benefits from carbonized biomass use for energy purposes – case study for the community from southern part of Poland

Abstract

The article describes the concept of renewable fuels production based on local biomass with addition of specific portion of carbonized biomass, which is feasible to be implemented in the vast majority of communities in Poland. The biomass carbonization process was not developed lately, but its current combination with of state of the art technical solutions allow to make it almost fully automatic. Adjusting scale of Biochar production to potential of biomass residues allows to treat that mature technology as the most suitable for the sector of small and medium enterprises specialized in wood processing. In the calculation part the concept of “virtual district heating networks” has been presented, where significant reduction of “low-emissions” from the communal sector is achieved through substitution of fossil fuels by pellets made of carbonized biomass.