PROFISTAT

LIFE03 ENV/SK/000577

6 185 050,00 €

2003

Nearly half of Slovakia’s geographical area is covered with forests, but before the Integrated Logistics for Use of Biomass Energy (ILUBE) project began in 2003, there was no internal market for biofuels. (A few companies were producing biofuels, but mostly for export.) The situation contrasted sharply with neighbouring Austria, where biofuels account for around 15% of fuel consumption. The need for a switch away from fossil fuels to alternative sources of energy is evident: Slovakia has one of the highest amount of CO2 emissions per capita in Europe at about 8 tons per year. Greenhouse gas emissions peaked in the late 1980s and then dropped by 25% from 1990 to 1994. However, emissions have remained at a relatively constant level since 1995 – about 44.7 million tons. Sixty-three percent this amount was produced by the combustion of fossil fuels. Air pollution is a major problem for project area, the Zilina region in northwest Slovakia. The source of pollutants is not only the local combustion of coal, coke and sludge, but also the Ostrava industry region in the Czech Republic or Katowice region in Poland. The use of natural gas has also increased over the past few years. The use of biomass offers a great potential for meeting the regions fuel needs while reducing the amount of CO2 emissions.

Work began on the new pellet plant in Kysucky Lieskovec in 2003, and it has been in operation since October of the following year. It converts wood shaving and chippings into pellets and has a production capacity of 12,000 tonnes a year. The association refers to the site of the mill as its central processing unit. From this base, it also monitors the 42 biomass boilers that it has already installed through a central computer. In this way, it is able to effectively control the production of biomass and the logistics of supply. Packaging and storing also takes place at the plant, and distribution of biomass responds to the fluctuation of need. In many of the buildings where the boilers were installed, energy efficiency measures were also carried out. As a result, many of the recipients reported improvements in the heating of the buildings, particularly welcome in schools and kindergartens. The improvements also helped to decrease overall heating costs. The majority of the boilers that Biomasa has installed generate between 15 to 2500kW. The biggest pellet boiler room within the project has a capacity of 2.5 MW (two boilers) and is in operation in the small spa village of Lubochna. The boiler heats 14 buildings of the health sanatorium, some flats, three school pavilions, a kindergarten and a municipal office building. The internal market for biomass in Slovakia is about 40,000 tonnes a year. While Biomasa exports a proportion of the wood pellets it produces, the percentage it now supplies to the domestic market is growing. This amount is in addition to the roughly 5,000 tonnes it supplies to its own members.

biomass energy / heat supply / wood /

BIOMASA, združenie právnickych osôb