latest announcements and news from across the bioenergy market.

1. NNFCC Market Review, April 2013, Page 1 of 8
Bioenergy
Highlights
Page 2 Policy
Page 2 Sustainability
Page 3 Biomass
Page 5 Biogas
Page 6 Bioliquids
Page 7 Research
Page 7 ROC Prices
Page 8 Events
NNFCC Market Review
Issue Thirteen, April 2013
ach month we review the latest
announcements and news from
across the bioenergy market. This
service is exclusively for our members.
Foreword
Welcome to the April issue of our bioenergy
market review. This month the Economist
published an article which called European
Union support for wood fuel „environmental
lunacy‟.
The article falls into the common trap of
oversimplifying a complex market and
highlighting a worst case scenario. The article
says that “the EU has created a subsidy which
costs a packet, probably does not reduce
carbon emissions [and] does not encourage
new energy technologies”.
The article is wrong on each account. Firstly
biomass is one of the cheapest forms of
renewable energy. According to an
independent report by ARUP – who worked
on behalf of the UK Government to calculate
the cost of different renewable energy
technologies – co-firing biomass (>20MW
scale) costs £167,0000/MW and has an
operating cost of £30,000/MW/yr. Making it
far cheaper than alternatives like solar PV,
offshore wind and even onshore wind.
Bioenergy is also reducing greenhouse gas
emissions – not in the distant future – but
today. A report published this month by the
EU Joint Research Centre showed that
burning many forms of wood can reduce
greenhouse gas emissions within 10 years. But
did warn that in the unlikely scenario that
stemwood is used, GHG savings might not be
reached for more than 50 years.
The Economist is also wrong in saying policies
do not encourage new technologies.
Certainly more can be done but advanced
biomass technologies like gasification already
benefit from enhanced subsidies and just this
month ETI announced its shortlist for a £2.8m
gasification demonstration programme.
Read on for the latest market news.
E

2. NNFCC Market Review, April 2013, Page 2 of 8
Policy
The Economist: European woodfuel
policies are ‘environmental lunacy’
Source: The Economist
An article published in The Economist this
month discusses European support for
bioenergy, calling it „environmental lunacy‟.
The article says that Drax could be getting
£550m a year in subsidies for biomass after
2016 and with such incentives, European firms
are scouring the Earth for wood. According to
the article, Europe consumed 13m tonnes of
wood pellets in 2012 and on current trends,
European demand will rise to 25m-30m a year
by 2020.
At the same time prices are going „through
the roof‟. Wood-pellet prices rose from an
average of €116 a tonne in August 2010 to
€129 a tonne at the end of 2012 (which for
the record is below the rate of inflation). The
article goes on to say this „increase‟ in price is
putting pressure on companies that use wood
as an input – such as saw mills making particle
board and furniture makers. This ignores the
fact that these markets have been in decline
for a number of years, long before a large-
scale bioenergy market existed.
But if subsidising biomass energy were an
efficient way to cut carbon emissions,
perhaps this „collateral damage‟ might be
written off as an unfortunate consequence of
a policy that was beneficial overall. So is it
efficient? No, says the article, quoting the
research of Timothy Searchinger, which states
that there is no carbon reduction until 100
years have passed [from the use of whole
trees to produce energy]. But in contrast, just
this month, the European Commission‟s Joint
Research Centre pointed out that most forms
of biomass do deliver rapid greenhouse gas
savings, while others will take longer.
Click here for more information.
Sustainability
Burning wood can reduce GHG
emissions, says JRC report on carbon
accounting of forest bioenergy
Qualitative evaluation of the papers
reviewed in JRC study, Source: JRC
The Joint Research Centre of the European
Commission has published its report on the
carbon accounting of forest bioenergy. The
study reviewed a large number of peer
reviewed publications and reports in order to
understand the consequences of increased
forest bioenergy production on greenhouse
gas (GHG) emissions.
The study found that most of the forest
feedstocks currently used in bioenergy
production are either industrial residues,
waste wood and residual wood, which deliver
GHG savings in the short to medium term. On
the other hand, the study found that in the
case of stemwood harvested for bioenergy
purposes only, if all the carbon pools and their

3. NNFCC Market Review, April 2013, Page 3 of 8
development with time are considered in
both the bioenergy and the reference fossil
scenario, there is can be an increase in CO2
emissions compared to fossil fuels in the short-
term (few decades). In the longer term
stemwood may also reach the fossil fuel parity
and generate GHG savings, if the productivity
of the forest is not reduced.
Concluding, the study said “from the studies
analysed it emerges that in order to assess the
climate change mitigation potential of forest
bioenergy pathways, the assumption of
biogenic carbon neutrality is not valid under
policy relevant time horizons (in particular for
dedicated harvest of stemwood for
bioenergy only) if carbon stock changes in
the forest are not accounted for”.
Click here for more information.
Biomass
Combustion
Associated British Ports to invest £100
million in Drax wood pellet facilities
Immingham Renewable Fuels Terminal,
Source: ABP
UK port group Associated British Ports (ABP)
has announced that it has signed a 15-year
contract with Drax Power Limited, which will
see terminal investments of up to £100m to
handle wood pellet shipments at its Humber
Ports of Immingham, Hull and Goole to
support Drax Power‟s conversion to biomass.
At Immingham, ABP will create a dedicated
import facility, the Immingham Renewable
Fuels Terminal, to handle Panamax-size bulk
carriers which will transport up to three million
tonnes of wood pellets a year. The investment
will require a new quayside discharge plant
with associated equipment to convey the
biomass from the ships to new silos capable
of storing up to 100,000 tonnes. From these
silos, cargo will be conveyed to a new train
loading facility which will use specialist rail
wagons to transport the biomass to Drax.
At Hull, ABP is investing in dedicated handling
equipment and storage facilities in order to
handle up to one million tonnes of biomass
each year to be supplied to Drax by rail.
Further inland at its port of Goole, only seven
miles from Drax, investment in warehousing is
also being made as a result of increased
imports of biomass through the port.
The project will generate around 100 jobs at
ABP‟s Humber Ports during construction and
over 100 permanent positions once the
facilities are fully operational.
Click here for more information.
Norwegian company invests in new
Lithuanian pellet facility
Norwegian investment company
Byggleverandørene has added a wood
pellets plant to its portfolio in Lithuania. The
Biowood Nordic plant cost LTL 4 million (€1.1
million) to construct via almost LTL 2 million of
EU and government aid received under the
scheme supporting migration of farming
companies towards non-farming activities.
“It is a new plant, built from scratch in
Mazeikiai in northern Lithuania, and we have
a capacity for 20,000 tonnes per year
although it is currently operating at around 70

4. NNFCC Market Review, April 2013, Page 4 of 8
per cent due to some start-up glitches,” said
Morten Kroslid, head of Byggleverandørene.
Biowood Nordic is near to three Baltic ports
through which it ships the pellets, “We would
like to export to Scandinavia as much as
possible because prices are much better
there than in Lithuania but currently the
export level is at 60 per cent, which also
includes Italy,” Kroslid added.
Click here for more information.
SITA delivers waste wood to RWE plant
Binn Farm, one of three wood processing sites
set up to service RWE contract, Source: SITA UK
Waste management company SITA UK has
started delivering waste wood fuel to the UK‟s
largest waste wood-burning biomass plant,
currently undergoing commissioning at
Markinch in Fife. The £200 million combined
heat and power facility is being developed
by energy giant RWE npower to provide
steam and electricity to the neighbouring
Tullis Russell paper mill.
Around 90 per cent of the feedstock for the
facility will be made up of recovered wood.
The wood will come primarily from SITA UK‟s
long-term municipal contracts as well as
shorter-term commercial agreements. The
company has secured the majority of
material through these routes so that it is not
so dependent on the spot market rate,
although it will still be sourcing around 20-
30,000 tonnes-a-year from the spot market.
The three new SITA sites are all wood
processing operations and feature slow and
high speed shredders, trommels and ferrous
and non-ferrous metal separation.
Click here for more information.
UK Biomass CHP project edging closer
to realisation
Renewable energy business Kedco has
revealed its Enfield, UK-based biomass CHP
project has made more strides towards
realisation. The project already has full
planning and environmental permissions to
generate 12MW of electricity and heat from
60,000 tonnes of waste wood a year. But
Kedco has now appointed N+1 Singer as its
equity advisor and received outlined terms
from a UK bank to contribute up to 70 per
cent of the total project cost.
Two energy suppliers have agreed in principle
to purchase 100 per cent of the electrical
output from the Enfield facility on a long-term
basis, with discussions with on-going with
another to take the heat output.
Click here for more information.
Gasification
Royal Dahlman project shortlisted for
gasifier pilot funding
OLGA 4MW Gasification Demonstrator
Moissanes, Source: Royal Dahlman
In 2012, the ETI launched a £2.8m competition
to find a company to design "the most
economically and commercially viable,
efficient energy from waste gasification
demonstrator plant possible". The ETI has now

5. NNFCC Market Review, April 2013, Page 5 of 8
narrowed down its search to three
companies; Advanced Plasma Power,
Broadcrown Ltd and Royal Dahlman.
Each company has been commissioned to
design and develop a gasification plant that
could operate at between 5 and 20
megawatt (MWe) scale. One plant from the
shortlist will be chosen to be built and is
expected to be fully operational by 2016.
NNFCC is helping Royal Dahlman with their
project by providing supporting technical
consultancy including site selection, waste
supply and regulatory understanding and
requirements. Royal Dahlman will develop a
plant with an electrical output of 7MWe using
patented MILENA-OLGA technology,
developed in cooperation with ECN.
Click here for more information.
Biogas
AD plant and MRF in South Wales
given green light after appeal
Source: Barton Willmore
A planning application on behalf of Bryn
Quarry for both an anaerobic digestion (AD)
facility and adjacent materials recycling
facility at Gelliargwellt Farm were rejected by
Caerphily County Borough Council in Dec
2011. However, after appeal planning
inspector Alwyn Nixon concluded that both
facilities were fully in accordance with the
council's development plan and that neither
could be located elsewhere.
The AD facility will process 35,000 tonnes of
food waste and agricultural by-products a
year and generate up to 1.4 MW of
electricity, enough to power roughly 3,000
homes. The materials recycling plant, which
has been operating under a series of
temporary consents since 1993, will process
up to 75,000 tonnes of waste wood, plastic,
soil, metal and paper a year; and 15,000
tonnes of green waste.
Click here for more information.
ENER-G to establish £20-40m Scottish
anaerobic digestion subsidiary
UK-based renewable plant operator ENER-G
plans to invest £20-40 million to establish a
Scottish anaerobic digestion subsidiary that
will target opportunities in the country‟s whisky
and dairy industries, said the company‟s
Director of Anaerobic Digestion Development
Scott Tamplin.
The potential for anaerobic digestion projects
in whisky distilleries is vast, given their steady
supply of waste biological by-products such
as draff and pot ales, and requirements for
onsite power. The distillery market for
anaerobic digestion is still relatively
unchartered, according to Tamplin.
The Scottish Whisky Association estimates that
since 2008 approximately £160 million has
been invested in renewable energy projects
at five whisky production sites in Scotland,
representing about 3 per cent of the Scottish
whisky industry.
ENER-G hopes to set up a company to
identify and target anaerobic digestion
projects in Scotland within the next two to
four years and has already invested in an
operations and maintenance support base in
the city of Elgin, which lies north-east of
Inverness.
Click here for more information.

6. NNFCC Market Review, April 2013, Page 6 of 8
Defra publish guidance on hub and
pod anaerobic digestion
When an anaerobic digester uses animal by-
products there are two key components:
pasteurisation and anaerobic digestion. In
conventional plants which use animal by-
products, both components, pasteurisation
and anaerobic digestion, take place on one
approved site. With Hub and Pod anaerobic
digestion the two components are on
different sites. The hub carries out collection
and de-packaging of the feedstock as well
as pasteurisation and then consigns the
pasteurised material to one or more pods
where the digestion component takes place.
The new Defra guidelines are designed to
ensure anaerobic digestion plant operators
operating a Hub and Pod system understand
and comply with the legal requirements
designed to ensure there is no unacceptable
risk for the transmission of disease.
Click here for more information.
Are we reaching biogas overcapacity
in the UK?
There are around 200 food waste treatment
anaerobic digesters currently planned or
operational, with a combined capacity to
treat 7m tonnes of food waste. Development
is largely focussed on clusters of anaerobic
digesters around the major towns and cities.
These digesters are targeting food waste
contracts from consistent waste streams like
retail and industrial waste. Planned
development of the food waste anaerobic
digestion (AD) sector might suggest we are
reaching over capacity.
There are approximately 8m tonnes of
business waste suitable for AD and a further
8m tonnes of household waste which could
also be used. Therefore even if all planned
digesters were actually built we would only
have capacity to treat and process
approximately half of the waste we generate.
In reality it is likely that only 20 to 30 per cent
of those plants currently going through the
planning process will actually be built, owing
to financial and contractual issues. However,
the increased number of plants will make
attractive contracts and waste streams
harder to find. There will also be increased
competition for waste from in-vessel
composters, which can handle mixed food
and green waste. Developers will have to
start looking at more variable food waste
streams such as household food waste and
will need to work more closely with local
authorities to promote the source segregation
of food waste.
Click here for more information.
Bioliquids
London's cooking waste to fuel power
station
2OC has signed a 20-year deal worth £200m
with Thames Water to provide renewable
heat and power to the UK‟s biggest sewage
treatment works at Beckton in East London.
The energy will come from 2OC‟s new
Combined Heat and Power (CHP) plant, to
be completed in 2015, which will use fuel
made from fats, oils and greases which would
otherwise have been tipped down the drain
or dumped in landfill. The £70m plant will
produce 130GWh of renewable electricity a
year – enough to run nearly 40,000 homes.
75GWh will be purchased by Thames to run its
sewage works and desalination plant and the
rest will be sold on to the national grid.
Thames Water, Britain‟s biggest water
company, says that fats, oils and greases are
responsible for most of the blockages in its
109,000 km of sewers and removing them
costs £1m a month.
Click here for more information.

7. NNFCC Market Review, April 2013, Page 7 of 8
Research
BBSRC urges industry to participate in
steering UK bioenergy and
biotechnology research
The Biotechnology and Biological Sciences
Research Council (BBSRC) has issued a call to
UK organisations that are commercialising
biotechnology and bioenergy to become a
member of a BBSRC Industrial Biotechnology
and Bioenergy Network.
In January, BBSRC launched a call for cross-
disciplinary, community building Networks in
Industrial Biotechnology and Bioenergy (NIBB).
The Networks will foster collaborative activities
between academic researchers and
businesses at all levels; helping to identify and
develop new approaches to tackle major
research challenges and deliver benefits in
industrial biotechnology.
Membership of a Network is required to
access the joint BBSRC-TSB £25 million
Industrial Biotechnology catalyst. Being a
member of a Network will allow industry
access to the activities they will run, meet
academics and help develop collaborative
proposals for a variety of funding sources.
BBSRC hopes to fund up to 10 Networks
across a range of scales.
Click here for more information.
Renewable Obligation Certificate (ROC) Price
The scheduled e-ROC monthly auction took
place on Thursday 28th March 2013 and all
88,722 ROCs offered for sale were sold. The
average price increased to £43.76, which was
a significant increase of £1.42p from the
February 2013 auction. The date of the next
e-ROC monthly auction is Wednesday 24th
April 2013.
Click here for more information.
£30.00
£40.00
£50.00
£60.00
25-Dec-01 25-Dec-03 24-Dec-05 25-Dec-07 24-Dec-09 25-Dec-11 24-Dec-13
AverageROCPrice
Auction Date

8. NNFCC Market Review, April 2013, Page 8 of 8
Events
World Waste to Energy City Summit
2013, 08-09 May 2013 in London, UK
http://wastetoenergy.rethinkevents.com
The 2nd World Waste to Energy City Summit will
explore the opportunities and challenges in
integrating waste-to-energy into today‟s
cities, focusing on advanced conversion
technologies for municipal and industrial
waste.
NNFCC members receive a 20 per cent
discount off the usual delegate rates. Email
enquiries@nnfcc.co.uk to receive the special
promotional code.
World Biomass Power Markets on 15-
17 May 2013 in Amsterdam, The
Netherlands
www.greenpowerconferences.com/BP1305NL
Green Power‟s World Biomass Power Markets
will be the world‟s largest conference and
exhibition focused exclusively on biomass for
thermal power and bioelectricity generation.
Dr Geraint Evans, Head of Biofuels and
Bioenergy at NNFCC, will be speaking at the
event.
NNFCC members receive a 10 per cent
discount off the usual delegate rates. Email
enquiries@nnfcc.co.uk to receive the special
promotional code.
Credits and Disclaimer
NNFCC Market Review is edited by Dr Matthew Aylott for NNFCC members. Feedback is welcome.
The Review has been compiled in good faith and NNFCC does not accept responsibility for any
inaccuracies or the products or services shown.
NNFCC
The Bioeconomy Consultants
NNFCC, Biocentre, Phone: +44 (0)1904 435182
York Science Park, Fax: +44 (0)1904 435345
Innovation Way, E: enquiries@nnfcc.co.uk
Heslington, York, Web: www.nnfcc.co.uk
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