Residue may top €65 a tonne
In May, Energy Minister Eamon Ryan announced the Government support, and said it brought farmers to the forefront of the green economy and the fight against climate change.
Minister Ryan said a guaranteed support price for bio-energy will range from 8.5 to 15 cent per kilowatt hour, depending on the technology deployed.
In the case of forest residue for co-firing power plants, Coillte sources have calculated that this support would allow the purchaser of fuel material to pay about €23 per tonne more than the €40 which Coillte can pay today.
Coillte chief executive David Gunning has warned that demand for co-firing could leave panel board factories short of raw material.
Coillte factories in Belview, Co Kilkenny and Clonmel, Co Tipperary and similar plants in Scarriff, Co Clare, and Carrick-on-Shannon, Co Leitrim, use about 1.2 million cubic metres of forest thinnings and chip residue from sawmills to manufacture OSB and MDF panel boards, mostly for export markets. Coillte and other manufacturers also use this raw material in combined heat and power plants.
Mr Gunning has revealed the company pays about €40 per tonne, but subsidised co-firing could boost the price to about €65 — which would endanger Coillte’s business. According to Coillte, 1m tonnes of biomass per year may be required for 30% co-firing of biomass in three peat-powered stations.
This could include miscanthus and willow crops grown by farmers, but Coillte says it will be competing directly with co-firing users for the forest residue which is the primary raw material for the Medite plant in Clonmel.
