Barriers and Opportunities for Biomass Utilization in Bulgaria

The technical potential of biomass - 97 PJ, is much higher than the one utilized in 2004 - 30 PJ1. It is important, however, to identify the economical potential. Most studies in this regard have been carried out in the 1990s, when the low prices of electricity and district heating resulted in relatively low economical potential. In 1996 the electricity price for households was about 25 EUR/MWh. In 2006 is about 65 EUR/MWh and it is much below the real market price. In 2010 the electricity price will most likely exceed 100 EUR/MWh. Given this price, the ongoing improvement in the forestry and agricultural practices, it can be estimated that the economical potential for biomass utilization will be much higher than the utilization in 2004.

In the future, production of pellets and briquettes will grow, in order to process greater part of the waste biomass from logging, wood-processing and the factories for production of cellulose. The machinebuilding factories, "Vaptsarov" Ltd and others, in cooperation with European companies, will start production of complex lines for pellets and briquettes. A ten-year programme for building 10 to 15 complex installations for production of pellets and briquettes from waste biomass from logging, woodprocessing, cellulose-paper industry and agriculture has been developed.

A large share of the pellets currently produced in the country are exported to the EU Member States, because of the high pellet prices there. In Bulgaria, still there is little demand for this fuel, mainly due to the higher prices of both the pellets and the automated pellet combustion technologies. Production of boilers with capacity 100 to 500 kW for incinerating of pellets and technological slivers will be started. With the help of the municipalities of towns with well-developed logging and woodprocessing industry replacement of boilers operating with fossil fuels is expected to start.

In table 7 we present the greenhouse effect that would result if the technical biomass potential is utilized instead of oil. Some of this potential is currently utilized and some of it will never be utilized as it is not economical, but the purpose of the table is only to illustrate the high contribution of biomass on climate change. As the biomass burning is ÑÎ2 neutral, the effect from the substitution is equal to the oil emissions (74 000 t.ÑÎ2/PJ). One should note that the actual potential is even higher, given the fact that if the biomass is not collected, its decay would release not only ÑÎ2 but also methane, which has some 20 times higher greenhouse effect. This effect, however, is not included in the table.

Table 7: CO2 reduction by the substitution of oil with biomass