Photo: BMLFUW/Kern
Energy from wood
When wood is burned, a neutral carbon balance is maintained. From this point of view, wood is virtually unrivalled as a fuel. In 2006 the total quantity felled amounted to 19 mio cubic metres of timber harvested, an increase by over 13.5 percent compared to 2005.
How big are our timber resources? The volume of growing stock is enormous in Austria. Every year the 1,095 million cubic metres of standing wood in forests are juxtaposed by approximately 31 million of annual increment. Only 19 million cubic metres of this annual increment are utilised every year. This means that increment exceeds consumption. Wood therefore constitutes a huge resource also for the energetic utilisation.What does “neutral carbon balance” mean? The statement that wood, as a fuel, maintains a neutral carbon balance when burned means that only such an amount of the greenhouse gas CO2 is released as the tree has recycled while growing, a process which therefore corresponds to the natural carbon cycle.
As opposed to this, fossil fuels like petroleum, natural gas or coal constitute resources that were stored in the course of millions of years. Upon incineration the carbon fixed in those sources of energy is within an extremely short time released again in such big quantities that it causes an imbalance in the global CO2 and to an increase in the atmospheric carbon dioxide (“greenhouse effect”).
Austria has a leading position internationally in the percentage share of renewable sources of energy in total energy consumption as well as in the percentage share of biomass. Currently, more than 17 percent of the Austrian households (2004) use wood, wood chips, pellets, and wood briquettes for heating. Over 700 biomass-based district-heating networks are in operation. An always higher number of communities count on the environmentally beneficial heat from wood.
Additional increase is ecologically and economically beneficial. About 40 percent of the total domestic energy consumption are for household heat supply.
Whereas the use of fuelwood and firewood billet in individual stoves has remained largely the same, the production of far-distant heat from biomass has increased in recent years (2002: 2.7 TWh; 2005: 3.4 TWh).
In 2006 over 15,200 new automatic wood combustion systems were installed.
From 1980 – 2006 totally 98,109 automatic wood combustion systems with a capacity of 6,860,510 kW were installed. 781 of them are large-scale systems (over 1 MW), about 5,963 are medium-scale systems (100 kW – 1 MW) and about 91,365 are small-scale systems (up to 100 kW). More than 50% of the small-scale systems are pellets central heating systems. Marked growth rates were observed with the use of pellets.
In terms of environmental policy, the utilisation of biomass is indispensable. Wood is a valuable energy resource which, moreover, can protect Austria against dependences on energy suppliers from abroad and rising oil prices.
The technology for using wood in a highly efficient way is available. In addition, the operation and extension as well as the supply of district-heating systems create new jobs in rural areas.
The continuous production of wood for energy generation is based on a sustainable management of forests. However, this requires excellently trained, highly qualified human resources. The rising regional wood demand for heat and electricity generation means an improvement in the farm income situation for Austria’s forest farmers and forest managers.
15.02.2008,