"We keep EU's forest energy promises"
INFRES aimed to accelerate the technological development and open new paths to EU’s renewable targets by producing research based knowledge, technological solutions and service innovations for forest residue feedstock supply. The project aimed at high efficiency and precise deliveries of woody feedstock to heat, power and biorefining industries by:
- Producing technological and logistic innovations for developing new harvesting, transport and storage technology for forest fuel procurement
- Demonstrating new solutions in full supply chains from harvesting to transport and storage in real operational environment
- Spotting the technological, economic, regulatory and other bottlenecks in the innovation structures for the forest energy sector
- Assessing the environmental, economical and social sustainability for the developed logistics including scenarios for different fuel sources, methods, technologies and transport distances
- Disseminating the outcomes of research and demonstrations to the practices.
Project consortium had 23 partners including 9 leading forest energy research organizations of accompanied with 14 SME along the biomass supply chain. SME’s include manufacturers of harvesting technology, chippers, feedstock supply enterprises, forest harvesting and transport providers, truck technology and IT service provider to manage fleet and storages.
During the project INFRES developed and demonstrated technological and logistical solutions that decrease the fossil energy input in the biomass supply by 20% and reduces the raw material losses by 15%. The cost of supply can be reduced by 10-20% and precision of supply improves the economic outcome of CHP production by 10%. The CO2 emissions of feedstock supply will diminish by 10%. With the novel technologies and efficient transfer of best practices between the countries in the consortium and other countries with similar natural conditions the volume of forest energy supply in EU27 by 2015 will be 30% higher than today.
EFI was involved in providing assessments on economic, environmental and social sustainability impacts for innovative demonstration cases by quantifying changes caused by new technologies and selected scenarios compared to business-as-usual operations.
Summary of the final report is available here .
Partners
Metsäntutkimuslaitos, Metla, Finland
Sveriges Lantbruksuniversitet, SLU, Sweden
Universität für Bodenkultur Wien, BOKU, Austria
Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, IVALSA, Italy
European Forest Institute, EFI, Finland
Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg, FOBAWI, Germany
Teknologian Tutkimuskeskus, VTT, Finland
Centre Technologic Forestal de Catalunya, CTFC, Spain
Stiftelsen Skogsbrukets Forksningsinstitut, Skogforsk, Sweden
IFER - Ústav pro výzkum lesních ekosystémů, s.r.o., IFER, Czech Republic
B.T.G. Biomass Technology Group BV, BTG, the Netherlands
Valentini SNC di Valentini Ilario e C, Valentini, Italy
Pezzolato Officine Costruzioni Meccaniche S.p.A., Pezzolato, Italy
Ellettari Luca S.A.S. di Ellettari Luca e C, Ellettari, Italy
Ecomond Ltd, Ecomond, Finland
Skogstekniska Klustret Ekonomisk Förening, Cluster, Sweden
Serveis del Consorci Forestal de Catalunya sccl, CSF, Spain
Johann Schwarz, Schwarz, Austria
Kesla Oyj, Kesla, Finland
Konepaja Antti Ranta, Antti Ranta Ltd, Finland
Fallert Ortenauer Holzenergie GMBH & CO KG, Fallert, Germany
Forstware Informationssysteme GMBH, Forstware, Germany
Schleimer Transport, Schleimer, Germany
INFRES (Innovative and effective technology and logistics for forest residual biomass supply in the EU ) is a collaborative project co-funded under the European Commission's FP7 Work Programme 2012 (FP7-KBBE-2012.1.2-01). This website and its content is copyright of Project INFRES. Copyright 2012-2015. All rights reserved.
The sole responsibility for the content of this report lies with the authors. It does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the European Communities. The European Commission is not responsible for any use that maybe made of the information contained therein.
More information about the project can be found here: https://cordis.europa.eu/project/rcn/104506_en.html or at the project website http://www.infres.eu/