Prospect of biomass energy in Slovakia

As soon as fossil fuels belong to non-renewables and their use is always related to problems in international market. So, nowadays renewable energy sources have become of great importance and the opportunities, performed by them, are considerable.

Among renewable energy sources like biomass, wind and solar energy the most promising is biomass energy. Recent studies have revealed that the share of renewables will rise to 5% in 2010, of which 40% belong to biomass energy (30 petajoule (PJ), but maximum capacity of biomass energy amounts to a range between 100 and 400 PJ/year.

To the main sources of biomass energy of the Slovak Republic belong the following: rapeseed (for liquid bio-fuels), wet biomass like animal manure and sewage sludge (for biogas production), north and central part of the country is rich for industrial and forestry wood residues, south-west and east – with straw and other agricultural residues.

The implementation of the transition to the use of biomass energy is considered by the experts from two points of view: on a short term and on a medium to long term.

The first one foresees three biomass energy concepts, which are believed to be the most promising:

• Small and medium scale (brown) coal fired district-heating systems are to be replaced by wood or straw fired systems.
• In existing coal fired power systems are to be introduced the system of wood residues co-combustion.
• So-called wet biomass, i.e. animal manure, wastewater, sewage sludge, is to be processed by low cost anaerobic digestion systems with CHP generation.

The second one includes two prospective concepts:

• Application of small to medium scale CHP combustion or gasification systems.
• In those regions, where there is no possibility to use wood residues, can be actively developed cultivation and utilization of energy crops. According to some recent researches, cultivation of energy crops is even more promising than growing of conventional food crop.