ETI Insights Report - Understanding Variability in Biomass Feedstocks and the Opportunities for Pre-Processing

Abstract:

For bioenergy to sustainably deliver around 10% of UK energy demand in the 2050s, a mixture of UK-grown biomass, residual waste streams and imported biomass will be needed. Expanding UK biomass production will require the UK to make more effective use of new and existing forestry and expand production of second generation energy crops, such as Miscanthus, Short Rotation Coppice willow and Short Rotation Forestry. The ETI’s Characterisation of Feedstocks (CoF) project was carried out by Forest Research and Uniper Technologies Ltd and ran from February 2015 to March 2017. Its purpose was to develop our understanding of the variability of different UK-produced bioenergy feedstocks and the causes of this variation. This project has generated valuable data on the composition of UK-grown feedstocks and their provenance. Some findings from the project corroborated existing knowledge and practice but others, such as the impact of storage type on Miscanthus bale quality, challenge existing assumptions and warrant further research. The testing of Miscanthus pellets also highlights the potential for the pelleting process to unintentionally affect the composition of the pellets, with potentially detrimental impacts on a downstream conversion technology. The TEABPP (Techno-Economic Assessment of Biomass Pre-Processing) project developed a process model which uses best available data to model bioenergy value chains with and without pre-processing. Whilst the model results from the TEABPP project did not highlight many clear circumstances in the UK under which pre-processing would reduce the costs of the bioenergy value chains considered, it did show that most conversion technologies would have to operate with feedstocks characteristics outside of their normal operating range if using Miscanthus, SRC willow or SRF.

Publication Year:

2018

Publisher:

ETI

DOI:

No DOI minted

Author(s):

Evans, H.