Potentials of biomass heat production in Heves County and the conditions of its utilisation

Gergely, Sándor

The proportion of non-fossil, renewable energy produced in EU was 13.9% in 2004; the plan is to increase this to 22.1% by 2010. In Hungary, this proportion was 0.9% in 2004 and needs to be raised to 3.6% by 2010 in order to meet the commitment given as part of the country’s EU accession. We have to increase the production and utilisation of renewable energy fourfold over the next six years.

Efforts in Heves County to satisfy energy requirements as cost-effectively as possible are also gaining in increasing significance. Maximised utilisation of the county’s biomass energy reserves satisfies both the fundamental aspects previously mentioned.

Commissioned by the Small Area Regional Development Association of Gyöngyös District and lead by the author, the researchers and teachers of the Károly Róbert Institute of Higher Education used detailed primary and secondary research to measure the volume of arable land by-products, vine cut-offs, fruit tree clippings and forestry biomass available annually for use in thermal energy production in the county, and calculated its energy content. They worked out the most important elements of an energy-forest programme, together with implementation criteria, organisational requirements and the programme’s potential effects. They explored the requirements for establishing and operating the planned Heves County Biomass Energy Cluster.

It is significant in the context of Heves County’s utilisation of biomass for energy production that the county is home to the country’s largest lignite (brown coal) fuelled electrical power plant, the Mátrai Erõmû Rt., which has made significant efforts to reduce environmental pollution. The Mátrai Erõmû Rt. has developed a combined firing programme for biomass of significant volume and efficacy that will, in the future, enable the effective and environmentally sound utilisation of such fuels in the county.

This paper explores one of the county’s important energy raw material reserves, which equates to 429,000 tonnes of biomass suitable for burning or what could be produced in the course of an energy-forest programme, with an energy potential of 6,337,000 gigajoules. Currently, little of this material is utilised in any form and is, in fact, burned on arable lands, vineyards, orchards and on forest wastelands, in a manner that causes serious environmental damage.

Full article