Take the Biomass Challenge!

As fossil fuels diminish and the search continues for alternative energy sources a British firm has been appointed to lead a project to identify supply and demand for biomass fuels.

The Sustainable Resource Management team at JHWalter (UK) has been commissioned by Natural England to carry out a mapping exercise of the existing and future demand for biomass in the East Midlands region of England. Biomass is defined as a crop which is grown in order to be burned for fuel and includes straw, miscanthus and short rotation coppice (SRC) among others.

Magz Knight, project manager for The Biomass Challenge at JHWalter, says biomass fuel is becoming more popular, but often the difficulty lies in putting suppliers and users in touch with each other,
particularly within a localised area, and the lack of an established supply chain. “The number of biomass producers is increasing, as is the number of projects using or intending to use biomass for energy production, but the challenge that faces producers and users of biomass is the absence of a mature market,” says Magz. “JHWalter has been commissioned to map both current and future biomass use in the East Midlands. We want to find out where biomass is being grown and where people want to use it and then make that information available to people to give them a better idea of where the demand and the supply is. “Our aim is to jump-start the supply chain by establishing the exact volume, potential volume and location of the biomass market and develop a new, extensive and easily accessible web of contacts.”