IEA Bioenergy publishes case studies illustrating how bioenergy is used in industry to provide high temperature heat

IEA Bioenergy has published today (13th October) a series of case studies that illustrate how bioenergy can be used in industry to provide high temperature heat. Small and medium sized industries, such as food or paper industries, often provide a good match with biomass resources that may be locally available.

Traditionally, the application of bioenergy in industry was performed in industries that can use their own biomass process residues to cover (some of) their own heat demand, e.g. sugar, wood processing, pulp and paper, etc… . With the increasing motivation in industry to reduce their carbon footprint, several other industry sectors are also shifting towards biomass based heat generation in cases where there are suitable biomass resources and technologies available nearby.

In contrast to larger energy intensive industries which typically require that large volumes of biomass are shipped to an individual site, the heat demand in small and medium sized industries, such as food or paper industries, can often be better matched with the biomass resources that may be locally available, resulting in smaller transportation distances.

Four case studies are now available to illustrate that a wide diversity of bioenergy conversion technologies is readily available for market application, the optimum configuration depending on local availability of biomass resources, characteristics of the heat demand, availability of space, capital, etc. The cases are:

1. Combustion of wood chips and composting residues for process steam generation in a potato processing industry
2. Gasification of paper reject to displace natural gas usage in a pulp and paper processes
3. Producing process steam in a dairy factory via fast pyrolysis bio-oil
4. Converting waste to energy to produce steam for paper production

Early 2021, a policy synthesis report will also be published that provides strategic information on market opportunities and effective ways to address technical and non-technical barriers to implement bioenergy based process heat.

The reports are available at:
https://www.ieabioenergy.com/publications/new-publications-case-studies-illustrating-how-bioenergy-is-used-in-industry-to-provide-high-temperature-heat/