Biomass power plants set for steady growth

A Frost and Sullivan product story
Edited by the Engineeringtalk editorial team May 5, 2006

The biomass power plant markets of Europe are set to experience steady growth till 2010 - a positive trend that will persist thereafter.

Driven by the European Union's (EU's) target of achieving a 12% contribution to total energy production from renewable energy sources by 2010, the biomass power plant markets of Europe are set to experience steady growth till 2010 - a positive trend that will persist thereafter.

Frost and Sullivan finds that the European biomass power plant markets earned revenues of $1685.5 million in 2005 and estimates this to reach $2204.4 million in 2012.

"The parallel needs of emission reduction and energy generation have increased the focus on renewable energy sources", says Frost and Sullivan Industry Manager Rajat Kumar.

"As more policies and frameworks start pointing in this direction, the challenge will be to capitalise on the attendant growth opportunities generated".

As the market progresses, a major concern will be to ensure feedstock availability.

This issue will be of particular concern to countries that are already dependent on imports to meet their domestic energy demands.

While bio energy will balance these insufficiencies, if pursued in accordance with the long-term benefits to the region, the key will be to secure adequate feedstock supplies to meet surging demand.

One of the primary factors hindering market growth will be the location of biomass power plants, which, will typically need to be proximate to feedstock sites.

This will limit the maximum size of these power plants to around 30MW electric and further upwards even as sourcing of biomass could continue to be a major challenge.

"Biomass power plants are normally established close to locations where there is feedstock availability and, in cases where plants cannot be established in such locations, an effective logistics as well as fuel supply chain will be mandatory", cautions Kumar.

"The lack of an efficient logistics system will be a crucial factor in determining plant location, thereby limiting the options on site selection".

As location will be a critical factor to maintaining plant operations, a feasibility analysis that links planned energy generation with the amount of feed stock that could be sourced at any instance (irrespective of other external factors) will reassure potential investors that they will be protected from high risk.

On the other hand, they would have to invest heavily in the feed stock supply chain to sustain plant functioning.

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