Current situation and policies for solid biomass energy utilization in Portugal

Abstract

Among the various sources of energy considered as renewable, biomass remains the only resource that contributes significantly to the world energy supply. However, fossil fuels, such as coal, oil and natural gas, still dominate the demand and energy supply.

In EU28 countries, the share of biomass in total primary energy production in 2016 was 17.8% (without non-renewable and renewable industrial wastes), coming 70% of this contribution from solid biomass(Eurostat, 2018). The total gross inland energy consumption of solid biomass in EU28 in 2016 was 98.3 Mtoe, which represents a share of 6% and almost half of the consumption of renewable energy sources (Eurostat, 2018). Portugal follows the same trend as the EU28 with regard to gross inland consumption. However, as far as primary energy production is concerned, renewable resources completely dominated, with a share of 97.1%. In the country, solid biomass represented 43.4% of the total primary energy production in 2016 (Eurostat, 2018). This means that solid biomass energy plays a very relevant role in Portugal, and strategies and incentives for its exploitation and use for energy production, essentially power and heat, should be carefully analyzed and the potential of application within the several end-user sectors explored. In 2016 Portugal consumed 2402 ktoe of energy from solid biomass and almost three quarters was used for heat production in the residential sector (32%) and industry (42%). The remaining was mainly used within the energy sector by main activity producers for power generation only and in autoproducer plants for power generation only and also for combined heat and power production (25%) (Eurostat, 2018).

This work analyses the current production, consumption and final utilization of solid biomass for energy generation in Portugal. This will be put in context with the existing potential within the country. In addition, the identification and analysis of the regulatory framework and existing incentive policies in Portugal for solid biomass energy applications are carried out.