Forest Knowledge Know-how Well-being Luke’s and VTT’s joint research and innovation programme 2012–2016

Objective We create new technology and business opportunities for rapidly growing forest energy markets. We produce profound knowledge for biobased sustainable development. We develop innovative concepts and products combining energy and material use of woody biomass. The Forest Bioenergy 2020 programme aims to open the paths based of existing and new technology and innovations to Finland’s and EU’s renewable targets:

Luke’s and VTT’s collaboration creates a markedly stronger body of expertise covering the whole value chain. This strategic alliance creates a critical mass of knowledge (c.a. 100 researchers) to accelerate the development of forest energy and support the policy and business decisions along the value chain. Solutions for a complete forest energy chain

Optimal bioenergy policies We study the efficiency of policies that regulate National and EU’s bioenergy systems. The aims also are to calculate the costs of achieving national bioenergy targets using forest-based energy sources. to measure the impacts of various policy measures within the forest and energy sectors in Finland and in the EU. Programme is devided into seven research areas.

The main objective is to improve the knowledge on environmental, economic, and social impacts of forest biomass production, handling and conversion in order to assess the sustainable production use of forests objectively. Analyses build on the strong experience of Metla related to sustainable biomass production together with the strong experience of VTT related to biomass conversion technologies, deployment chains, and system level analysis. Sustainability of the biomass production, conversion and end use

Intensive production of woody biomass The main objective is to develop new methods for producing and harvesting energy biomass in dense deciduous forests and in dedicated biomass energy plantations. We will study and demonstrate establishment techniques, management alternatives, economy, and harvesting technology of these stands.

Biomass resource assessment and feedstock availability Any investment decision or political target dependent on biomass supply should be based on a reliable estimation of available biomass resources. The objectives of the research topic are to continue supporting forest and energy industries and policy makers with biomass resource assessments, to provide integrated biomass potential assessments and supply chain studies with the resource data, to integrate end-user structure and development of fuel demand with the assessments.

Smart forest biomass supply chains This research area develops cost effective means of improving both quality of chips and functional reliability and efficiency of wood biomass procurement chains from forest to the end user by applying various logistical solutions involving harvesting, storage, chipping, transportation and handling.

Innovative CHP-combined heat and power production Improved fuel quality and control of combustion in the small scale use of biomass for energy by developing technologies for CHP(C) that can be competitive solutions for energy production also in small scale.

Biofuels for transport, bioenergy carriers and biorefineries New concepts for increasing the wood energy business to complement existing business sectors and to utilise the potential of integration benefits maximally upgrading of fuel quality of bio-oil to replace light fuel oil, co-feeding of bio-oils into mineral oil refineries, and the principles of producing mainly wood-based liquid traffic fuels, such as bioethanol and biodiesel.

FIN/EU 2020 & 2050 low carbon bioenergy scenarios and implementation paths We elaborate and investigate long term scenarios for supply of and demand for woody biomass for energy and material uses from national to global levels. The main tasks are to develop and apply technology rich integrated assessments models on bioenergy sector, to create scenarios for the development of the user structure including novel uses of biomass, to evaluate the efficiency of alternative policy measures aiming at increased use of biomass in the energy sector and to examine the market impacts of the increased use of bioenergy.

Programme organization Volume of the programme: 10 M€ and 80–100 man years/a. Collaboration with universities, LYNET ja SHOK -networks. EERA (European Energy Research Alliance) Bioenergy leadership. IEA Bioenergy participation.

Contacts Professor Antti Asikainen, Natural Resources Institute Finland (Luke) Professor Kai Sipilä, VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland Ltd