Wood Energy for the Future

Bioenergy’09, an event bringing together all the partners in the bioenergy chain, is taking place in Kilkenny, today, Wednesday 17 June. The event was jointly organised by Teagasc, COFORD and Sustainable Energy Ireland.

Speaking at the conference, Teagasc forestry researcher, Brian Clifford said that a cluster-based approach is the best way to identify private forest resources that are available in Ireland to supply the wood energy market. ”He said: ”Private forestry in Ireland is reaching a point where the possibility exists for it to make a significant contribution to the wood energy market.”

However, it is necessary to quantify the wood resource from private forestry. New research by Teagasc, funded by COFORD, seeks to provide a framework to address the issue of economies of scale amongst small forest owners. It will provide a framework to quantify the wood resource at a local level and thereby help local wood energy users to plan their woodchip supply.

Forests planted in the late 1980s and 1990s are coming to the age where thinning operations may be carried out. However, there is very little information at local level on sourcing timber volume and identifying the plantations that will be suitable for thinning in the next five to ten years. In order to address these issues a cluster-based approach has been developed to identify the forestry areas occupying a significant proportion of the landscape and thus enabling a targeted approach for the maximum capture of forest information.

Brian Clifford said: ”Our research has located high level concentrations of private forestry in 16 distinct geographic regions. Results show that 43 per cent of all private planting has taken place in just 14.5 per cent of the national land area, indicating strong geographic trends to the west, north west and south west of the country. These identified areas have the greatest potential to service the emerging wood energy markets.”

Teagasc forestry development officers are involved in setting up several forestry producer groups throughout the country. These farmer-lead groups are targeting local markets, thus maximising the benefits from the wood energy market leading to a better margin for the farmers.

This afternoon delegates at the conference will visit a local farmer to view his forestry plantation, a willow crop, and to discuss the local markets he has developed for wood energy. Teagasc’s head of forestry, Dr Nuala Ní Fhlatharta said that this is a good example of a landowner with a forestry plantation exploiting its full potential to meet the heat energy requirements in his local area.