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During the first week of March this year, I was fortunate enough to attend the Wales OPET Cymru Study Trip to Bavaria and Upper Austria. The trip consisted of two parts, first of all looking at a number of biomass/district heating projects in Bavaria and secondly to attend the World Sustainable Energy Day (conference and exhibition) alongside the high profile Energy Globe Awards 2002 in Upper Austria.

Biomass - From MW to kW

From the beginning it was apparent that the biomass technology we should be using is already available in Bavaria and Upper Austria... in abundance, and we were shown a great variety of generating plants. The largest cogeneration plant we visited was in Pfaffenhofen (27MWth and 7.5MWel). It has over 100 customers, including large commercial facilities, and optimises its seasonal load by combining its district heating system (12 km heat main) with provision of cooling to the local brewery, baby food factory, hospital and commercial premises. A steam turbine (7.5MW) also provides around 40 GWh/a electricity into the grid. Fuel demand is around 80,000 t/a (30% chipped forest residues and 70% clean sawmill waste) with local forest owners supplying most of the forest residues on 10 year contracts.

Plaffenhofen

Wegscheid plant	Going from one end of the scale to the other, we also visited a number small co-operatively owned plants, such as Wegscheid a 820kw woodchip heating plant. It was constructed by an association of 77 forest owners and supplies the local school, tennis hall, community owned hotel and restaurant, through a 400m heat main.

The biomass sector also includes a very well developed domestic biomass boiler sector. In Upper Austria, at the World Sustainable Energy Exhibition, we were treated to a staggering variety of boilers/burners. Not content with having 'a piece of equipment' the industry has introduced a design element - ranging from the wonderful to the bizarre. We also looked at the supply side, when we visited the Regen Wood Pellet Factory at a large Bavarian sawmill. The pelleting plant uses sawdust from an on site window manufacturing process and produces 10,000 t/a. All of the projects exemplified the sustainability of localised power generation - meeting local demand from local supply. They were often communally owned and provided annual income for forestry owners, farmers and private industry alike.

The second part of the trip took us from Bavaria into Upper Austria and doing a roof count on the Austrian side revealed at least one in ten roof surfaces with a solar thermal installation. Running the Brecon Beacons Solar Club has made me intensely aware of roof tops! and it really brought home the point of how far behind we are.

On the Austrian side we attended Energy Globe Awards 2002 - a very glitzy affair (pictures of the proceedings can be viewed at www.energiesparverband.at). All nominees gave presentations over the following two days at the World Sustainable Energy Conference, which took place next to the Exhibition.

Case Study - Upper Austria

To illustrate how a European region has achieved not only its Kyoto targets but, more impressively, most of it through small scale deployment, we take Upper Austria as a case study. Upper Austria has a population of 1.38 million and covers an area 12,000 km2. In 1993 the first Upper Austrian Energy Plan set out targets for Energy Efficiency (EE) and Renewable Energy (RE) alike. The RE target was set at 25%, but by 2002 RE provided an impressive 30% of primary energy consumption. The overall energy consumption is 260 Peta Joule (PJ) of which 88 PJ (33%) is by renewable energy sources - 14% of which is biomass, 14% hydro, 2% other including solar and wind.

The following installations were developed between 1993 and 2000:

•  577,00 m2 of solar thermal collectors
  
  
•  13,200 modern wood-chip boilers (wood chip and pellets)
  
  
•  200 local biomass district heating networks
  
  
•  450 grid-connected PV installations
  
  
•  30 biogas and sewage gas plants
  
  
•  500 micro hydro power plants
  
  
•  14 wind installations
  
  
• 5 geothermal plants
  
  
• l 30,000 heat pumps

The figures are quite staggering, not only within the context of the size of Upper Austria, but also through the wide spread of technologies they have utilised. The RE sector has created or secured employment for over 10,000 people, making the point (yet again) that the sustainable development of a sector and economic growth can go hand in hand. It is also important to note that RE and EE have been developed in tandem from the very beginning, thus new build has reduced energy consumption by 30% and in industry, specific energy consumption has decreased by 2% annually. Not content with having reached the targets set in 1993, the Upper Austrian government has recently passed a new Energy Strategy 21, which sets further targets to be reached by 2010. Over the next 8 years they envisage:

• Doubling the share of solar thermal and biomass heating systems


• Producing an extra 10 PJ from RES
  
  
• Increasing energy efficiency by 10%
  
  
• Reducing energy consumption for heating and hot water by 20%

Visit the following web-sites for more information:

• www.welsh-biofuels.co.uk
• www.zreu.de - the Centre for Rational Use of Energy and Environment, the Bavarian Cross Border OPET Partner
• www.energiesparverband.at - The Upper Austrian Cross Border OPET Partner and host of the World Sustainable Energy Day Conference and Energy Globe Awards.

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