Biomass – the ‘old technology’ that needs support to thrive here

The Energy and Farm Business Show heard that biomass can be used "for combined heat and power for electricity, and if it’s gasified, it can be used for biogas or biomethane."

"Fundamentally, biomass is a big resource, but it just hasn’t had the support to get it into the space it needs to."

Sometimes biomass is seen as an "old technology”; it’s been around a long time.

But still, the sector hasn’t reached its potential in Ireland; all the while the country did not meet its 2020 target for renewable energy and did not perform well in the use of renewables in the heat sector, and "will struggle again on its 2030 targets, which have now been set even more stringent”, Paddy Phelan of 3 Counties Energy Agency and the Irish BioEnergy Association told the recent Energy and Farm Business Show at Gurteen College in Co. Tipperary.