Welcome to the Irish BioEnergy Association
IrBEA is the national association for the Bioenergy industry in Ireland. This website is a resource for IrBEA members and others interested in the promotion of bioenergy in Ireland. We seek to increase an understanding of issues related to harvesting biomass and using it to generate energy such as heat or electricity or motion. The overall aim of the association is to promote biomass as an environmentally, economically and socially sustainable energy resource. We hope that through this website we can raise awareness and facilitate information exchange on Bioenergy.
REFIT, PSO & CHP Update
As you may be aware the REFIT/HECHP/PSO saga is still on-going – with the focus now on HECHP Certification, Noel Gavigan the IrBEA executive has written a full description of the situation below, IrBEA has also written to Minister Pat Rabbitte earlier this week to push applications through, see attached.
Meeting with the CER regarding HE-CHP 21 - 3 - 12
Recently Noel Gavigan and Nick Rackard met with the CER to discuss the HE-CHP application process, you may be interested in the notes that follow.
Socioeconomic Report Published by IrBEA
I am pleased to introduce this, the first study of its kind, with a mandate to assess the socioeconomic benefits of developing the Bioenergy sector in Ireland over the coming years to 2020.
For some time there has been a need for a credible independent analysis of the investment required to develop the Bioenergy sector, the potential for job creation and the many positive socioeconomic benefits that accrue from switching from fossil fuels to indigenous sources of Bioenergy.
A key tenet of this work has been to use conservative, cautious and credible estimates. The Government 2020 projections were used as the baseline for the size of the various renewable energy sub-sectors, not-withstanding the fact there is potential to exceed these projections. Although agriculture will play a key role in delivering energy crops and farm residues for Bioenergy production, no net new employment is assumed in agriculture. The importation of a sizable part of the transport biofuels amount is built into the estimates. Also co-firing at a significant scale is only projected to happen at one of the three power plants presently fired with peat by 2020.
Reporting back from the IrBEA Conference
With the generous support of ESB the Irish BioEnergy Association held its 11th National BioEnergy Conference last Thursday and with a record attendance was a very positive occasion for the industry. Minister Pat Rabbitte opened the conference and along with Duncan Stewart launched a Socio-economic Report on job creation and investment opportunities in BioEnergy.
In his opening speech Pat Rabbitte emphasised that “Ireland has exceptional natural advantages with regard to bioenergy……. A vibrant bioenergy sector can, in an Irish context, contribute to the three pillars of European energy policy: security of supply, competitiveness and sustainability. A successful sector can also generate jobs, contribute to rural development and have positive environmental impacts….”. Minister Rabbitte also pointed out that this year the 2007 Energy White Paper will be fundamentally reviewed and an energy framework from 2012-2030 will be drawn up; and that he will be opening the REFIT 3 scheme the following week (Week 9).
Associates of IrBEA
