A $17 million (€15 million) Biomass Utilisation Fund has been launched in Tuolumne County, California. The California Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD), Rural Community Assistance Corporation (RCAC) and Sierra Nevada Conservancy (SNC) launched the fund on 7 May. The programme will provide loans to boost the use of low- and no-value wood from... [Read More]

Contractual supplies of waste wood to UK biomass plants were 60% lower at the beginning of April, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. According to the Wood Recyclers’ Association (WRA), the crisis could impact the waste wood sector for up to three years. Delegates attending the WRA’s summer meeting webinar on 3 June were told that recovering from the pandemic is going... [Read More]

Atlantic Power has shared updates on the status of the power purchase agreement (PPA) for its Calstock bioenergy facility in Ontario, Canada. Calstock is an approximately 35 MW biomass plant in Hearst, Ontario, utilising wood waste. The PPA with the Ontario Electricity Financial Corporation, which had been scheduled to expire in June, was recently extended to 16 December... [Read More]

GoodChips®, the first international certification scheme for wood chips and hog fuel, has welcomed Azwood Energy as its newest member. Azwood is a leading energy supplier in New Zealand. In joining the scheme, the company has reinforced GoodChips’ mission to ensure that quality materials are seen throughout the supply chain at a local and international level. Azwood... [Read More]

Glennmont Partners has completed the sale of Sleaford Renewable Energy Plant (Sleaford REP) to Greencoat Capital. The sale marks the last remaining asset of Glennmont’s €437 million Clean Energy Fund. Sleaford REP is an operational 38 megawatt-equivalent renewable combined heat and power (CHP) plant, which uses a blend of straw and sustainable wood chips to generate... [Read More]

Graham’s The Family Dairy in Fife, Scotland, has submitted plans to its local council for a low carbon heat project. The proposed plant would be built for Graham's cheese production facility at the Glenfield Industrial Estate in Cowdenbeath and would generate and distribute bioenergy for on-site heat and power. The proposed low carbon effluent treatment plant would... [Read More]

KPA Unicon has delivered a new bio-heating boiler plant to Espoo, Finland, on behalf of Finnish energy company Fortum. The plant was handed over for commercial use on 5 May. Unicon’s Renefluid bubbling fluidised bed (BFB) boiler plant generates district heating for the residents of Espoo, using wood biomass. The new boiler plant replaces part of the old coal-fired... [Read More]

A new $15 million (€13.6 million) rail link in the US has helped Drax to reduce its supply chain emissions and biomass costs. In its first year of operation, the five-mile rail link has increased the flow of biomass from one of Drax’s US pellet plants to its UK power station, helping to reduce emissions and costs while boosting the resilience of the company’s... [Read More]

The European Commission has approved a DKK 4,150 million (€550 million) state aid scheme to support the production of electricity using biomass. The funding will allow Denmark to produce electricity via existing and depreciated biomass installations in the country. Installations benefitting from the scheme receiving support in the form of a premium, covering the additional... [Read More]

ANDRITZ will supply a complete biomass gasification plant and a new biomass handling line to Klabin, the biggest paper producer, exporter and recycler in Brazil. The plant will be built at Klabin’s Ortigueira mill, with a 51 MW gasification plant, a belt dryer, a multifuel lime kiln burner and biomass handling equipment with auxiliaries. By replacing 100% of the heavy... [Read More]

Around 6,000 native trees are being planted at the Tamworth Agricultural Institute in Australia as part of the Biomass for Bioenergy project. The project, launched under the New South Wales (NSW) Primary Industries Climate Change Research Strategy, will investigate opportunities for increasing the amount of sustainable biomass use in NSW, with a focus on electricity... [Read More]

Bioenergy Europe has welcomed the decision made by the European Court of Justice (ECJ) to dismiss a case filed against wood biomass as ‘inadmissible’. The case was filed with the EU highest court in Luxembourg on 4 March 2019 by a group of individuals and non-governmental organisations (NGOs). With this ruling, the ECJ ‘clears doubts’ on the future of wood biomass,... [Read More]

Global engineering company Black & Veatch (B&V) has been asked to review a proposed green waste pyrolysis project in Hong Kong. The Environmental Protection Department of the Government of Hong Kong Special Administrative Region has appointed the firm to be the Owner’s Engineer of Hong Kong’s first pilot plant for woody waste recycling. The plant will have... [Read More]

Drax has launched a Biomass Carbon Calculator to help the industry accurately measure emissions in the biomass supply chain. The new tool will allow the sector to identify where emissions reductions can be made and help to make a greater contribution to tackling climate change, according to Drax. The company is seeking views from a wide range of experts, including non-governmental... [Read More]

Valmet has received an order to convert a lignite-fired boiler into a biomass-fired boiler at a power plant in Konin, Poland. The order, worth approximately €20 million, came from Zespół Elektrowni Pątnów-Adamów-Konin SA (ZE PAK). The converted boiler plant will be delivered to the customer in autumn 2021. The reconstruction of the K-7 boiler is the main element... [Read More]