Availability of woody biomass

 

The estimates on the availability of woody biomass at the national level varies in a range from 15 to 25 million tons of dry matter in relation to the methodology adopted and sources of the initial data. The potential energy contribution is estimated to be 4 mtoe (million tons oil equivalent). In fact, though there are numerous studies and researches in the field of bio-energy forest, they are generally aimed at territorial limited contexts. That lacks an overview of the geographic distribution of demand and supply of wood fuel.The statistics produced by the GSE S.p.A. note that in the time period between 1999 and 2009, the number of plants using solid biomass (mainly wood chips) is increased according to an average annual rate of 7.8%. From 25 plants in 1999 to get up to 53 plants in Italy in 2009.Evolution of installed capacity and number of plants using solid biomassItaly from 1999 to 2009