http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/jan/14/green-biomass-boilers-may-waste-billions-public-money

"Billions of pounds of public money is to be spent supporting
‘green’ boilers, despite evidence from the government’s own
experts and industry that they will do little to help the UK meet
its clean energy targets.

A study by the Department of Energy and Climate Change found that
biomass boilers in the non-domestic sector were around 10-20%
less efficient than expected. Those boilers account for 90% of
payments under the Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI), the
government’s flagship scheme to encourage a shift to low carbon
heating.

The UK has pushed biomass boilers as a technology to help meet an
EU target of getting at least 15% of its energy from renewable
sources by 2020, incentivising businesses and individuals to
switch to them in return for payments under the RHI.

But “under-performance appears widespread in the UK biomass heat
sector,” the paper admits, adding that the efficiency shortfall
“also means emissions will be higher than laboratory test results
suggest”.

Just £128.9m had been paid through the RHI as of November 2014,
but the final cost in public money could be over £10bn because
those installing biomass boilers under the scheme receive annual
payments for several years, Decc’s own impact assessment shows.
So far, most RHI payments appear to have been banked by wealthy
landowners.

To be promoted as a renewable source of energy, the biomass
boilers need to have a 85% efficiency rate for converting fuel to
energy – but the Decc study reveals the average efficiency rate
of installed boilers was 66.5%.

The target rate may be unreachable, as the report found that the
biomass heating systems surveyed “can only achieve levels around
76% (on average)”.

Yet no field studies of biomass boiler efficiency were carried
out before the RHI’s introduction because Decc viewed biomass as
an established and internationally successful technology.

“It is concerning that government has belatedly recognised that
many biomass installations will seemingly not contribute to its
renewable energy targets despite billions of pounds of public
money being committed via the RHI,” said Simon Lomax, managing
director of Kensa Group, a manufacturer of heat pump, a rival low
carbon heating technology.

“Policy flaws have resulted in absurdly generous tariffs for
biomass installations, attracting inexperienced entrants to an
immature market which does not benefit from any effective
regulation,” he told the Guardian.

The sole regulator for biomass boilers is the Microgeneration
Certification Scheme but it only covers smaller models, below
45KW in capacity. “In effect this means there are no quality
standards for almost 90% of all schemes under the RHI,” Decc’s
paper says.

“The absence of any quality standard above 45kW, and of data
collection and sharing is remarkable, and differs from most other
countries that have seen a biomass heat sector develop
successfully,” it adds.

Much of the research for the design of the RHI was sub-contracted
out to consultancies such as AEA and NERA and the Guardian
understands that neither the figures they produced nor evidence
of the renewability of biomass boilers, were scrutinised in
detail by the Decc hierarchy.

“Among scientists and engineers there was huge concern but
policymakers just didn’t understand – or didn’t want to
understand it,” a source involved in the RHI design process told
the Guardian. “Decc should have required us to provide suitable
evidence to prove that non-domestic biomass boilers eligible for
RHI funding were a renewable technology, but they didn’t
bother.”"

Chris
--
Chris J Dixon Nottingham UK


Plant amazing Acers.