Jeremy Rix NORTH ENERGY ASSOCIATES LTD Life Cycle Assessment for AB Systems Wetland Biomass to Bioenergy

Life Cycle Assessment – What is it? Environmental impacts of a product over its lifetime Defined scope and methodology Provides answer(s) to specific question(s)

What are the environmental impacts of this product? What if? –‘counterfactual’ scenarios

Life Cycle Assessment – Why? UK commitment to reduce Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions provides incentive to use biomass for heating supports market price for biomass LCA checks that using biomass does actually reduce GHG emissions - and quantifies the savings

Guaranteed payments based on heat generated from biomass boilers between 2p and 7p per kWh for commercial 11p per kWh for domestic Stringent requirements on technology & installation sustainability requirements for supplied biomass

60% GHG saving when GHG emissions for cultivation, processing and transport compared to EU average fossil fuel heating emissions Equates to life cycle GHG emissions < 34.8g CO 2 /MJ* Sustainability requirements for land-use, including biodiversity and carbon stock criteria 2015 Biomass Sustainability Requirements * 3.6MJ = 1kWh

Scope Greenhouse Gases (GHGs): Carbon Dioxide, CO 2 (from fossil fuels only) Methane, CH 4 Nitrous Oxide, N 2 O Primary Energy GHG & Energy for manufacture of plant & equipment Counterfactuals: Traditional methods of wetland management Heat from coal NOT in scope: Biodiversity & Habitat

Briquetting Briquetting: 5 main stages DeliveryHarvestingUseStorage & Drying

Expected significant GHG emissions Direct Fuel Use Transport Harvesting Drying Briquetting Plant & Machinery Transport Vehicles Harvesting Equipment Briquetting Equipment

Combustion CO 2 emitted not included (as ‘biogenic’) CH 4 and N 2 O emissions are included Boiler efficiency extremely important as it affects the GHG emissions per MJ delivered Efficiency affected by moisture content and feedstock quality

Interim Results GHG emissions per MJ delivered heat Wetland Biomass ~ 11g eq.CO 2 per MJ Counterfactual ~ 150g eq.CO 2 per MJ Saving ~ 93%

Summary Interim results savings likely to be above 80% well within the target set for the RHI The majority of GHG emissions from Harvesting & Processing stages GHG emissions from transportation within the UK unlikely to be highly significant Savings % highly dependent on the counterfactual chosen

Summary  Land management required in any case  Harvesting improves land management  No land use change or food crops displaced  Little current demand for arisings  Low drying requirement  Low GHG emissions

Jeremy Rix NORTH ENERGY ASSOCIATES LTD Life Cycle Assessment for AB Systems Wetland Biomass to Bioenergy thank you