Potentials for electricity production from wood in Ireland

Greenhouse gas emissions in Ireland are expected to be 25% higher in 2010 as compared to 1990, whereas Ireland's Kyoto commitment is a maximum rise of 13%. One of the measure taken to reduce this gap (about 7Mtonne CO2-eq.) could be the development of biomass based electricity production. This study focusses on various biomass resources and a range of conversion technologies, in order to select promising routes for biomass based electricity in the short term. This article extends previous analyses by: (i) including the use of forest residues and sawmill residues as potential biofuels; (ii) considering both co-firing in retrofitted existing peat stations and co-firing in the new to be built Europeat power plant; and (iii) including other promising conversion technologies to generate electricity from biomass. Although the potential for energy crops in Ireland could be large, their cost is relatively high, 4.7–8.2 GJ−1, dependent on the type of land used. Lower cost biomass can be obtained from currently unutilised forest residues. It was estimated that about 3.4PJ could be extracted from the forests at a cost of 2–3 GJ−1. The present market price of sawmill residues (in total about 7PJ) is 1.4–3.5 GJ−1. Three promising routes for electricity generation were selected: co-firing with peat in the new to be built Europeat power plant, small scale CHP generation with fixed bed gasifiers, and co-firing in the Moneypoint coal fired plant. Co-firing in the Europeat plant is the most attractive. The electricity production costs are 0.033–0.053 kW−1h−1 as compared to 0.041 kW−1h−1 for peat based electricity. Costs per avoided tonne of CO2 are between −7 and 12 . Electricity generation from wood could fill about 14% (about 1.0Mtonne CO2-eq.) of the Irish ‘Kyoto gap’.