Biomass Availability in Europe as an Alternative Fuel for Full Conversion of Lignite Power Plants: A Critical Review

Vasiliki Tzelepi, Myrto Zeneli, Dimitrios-Sotirios Kourkoumpas, Emmanouil Karampinis, Antonios Gypakis, Nikos Nikolopoulos and Panagiotis Grammelis
Additional contact information
Vasiliki Tzelepi: Chemical Process and Energy Resources Institute, Centre for Research and Technology Hellas, 52 Egialias str., 15125 Athens, Greece
Myrto Zeneli: Chemical Process and Energy Resources Institute, Centre for Research and Technology Hellas, 52 Egialias str., 15125 Athens, Greece
Dimitrios-Sotirios Kourkoumpas: Chemical Process and Energy Resources Institute, Centre for Research and Technology Hellas, 52 Egialias str., 15125 Athens, Greece
Emmanouil Karampinis: Chemical Process and Energy Resources Institute, Centre for Research and Technology Hellas, 52 Egialias str., 15125 Athens, Greece
Antonios Gypakis: General Secretariat for Research and Technology, 14–18 Messogion Ave., 11527 Athens, Greece
Nikos Nikolopoulos: Chemical Process and Energy Resources Institute, Centre for Research and Technology Hellas, 52 Egialias str., 15125 Athens, Greece
Panagiotis Grammelis: Chemical Process and Energy Resources Institute, Centre for Research and Technology Hellas, 52 Egialias str., 15125 Athens, Greece

Energies, 2020, vol. 13, issue 13, 1-26

Abstract: Biomass has been demonstrated as a capable source of energy to fulfill the increasing demand for clean energy sources which could last a long time. Replacing fossil fuels with biomass-based ones can potentially lead to a reduction of carbon emissions, which is the main target of the EU climate strategy. Based on RED II (revised Renewable Energy Directive 2018/2001/EU) and the European Green Deal, biomass is a promising energy source for achieving carbon neutrality in the future. However, the sustainable potential of biomass resources in the forthcoming decades is still a matter of question. This review aims at estimating the availability of biomass for energy reasons in the EU, and to evaluate its potential to meet the coal power plant capacity of the main lignite-producer countries, including Germany, Poland and Greece. Plants in line with the sustainability criteria of RED II have been selected for the preliminary estimations concerning their full conversion to the biomass power concept. Furthermore, the various barriers to biomass utilization are highlighted, such as the stranded asset risk of a future coal phase-out scenario, biomass supply chain challenges, biomass availability in main lignite-producer EU countries, the existing full conversion technologies, and biomass cost. A variety of challenges in the scenario of lignite substitution with biomass in a plant are investigated in a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) analysis. Technological risks and issues should be tackled in order to achieve the coal phase-out EU goal, mainly with regard to the supply chain of biomass. In this direction, the development of logistics centers for the centralized handling of biomass is strongly recommended.

Keywords: biomass; the European Green Deal; GHG emissions; RED II; stranded assets; coal phase-out; biomass conversion technologies; cost; SWOT analysis (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (23)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/13/13/3390/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/13/13/3390/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jeners:v:13:y:2020:i:13:p:3390-:d:379246

Access Statistics for this article

Energies is currently edited by Ms. Agatha Cao

More articles in Energies from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().