COMMENT/IN THIS ISSUE INDUSTRY NEWS Editorial comment T


he sun shone on the first day of the 20th Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, but as the nights lengthen, Scotland will once again need power to keep warm in the Northern Winter. Addressing the All-Energy Conference at Aberdeen in May, Nick Green, Head of Energy for UK estate agents Savills, claimed that restrictions in finance and delays to both planning and grid connections are preventing the country’s rural communities from achieving the full benefits of renewable energy. Green, a rural energy expert, argues that while the recently-released ‘Agri-renewables Strategy for Scotland’ provides a positive roadmap for the industry, there are still key barriers to entry in the form of finance, planning and grid capacity. “Land has been used to power industry for thousands of years,” commented Green, “and renewable energy has the potential to fundamentally transform the profitability of business in the rural sector. Until recently, however, it has been seen by some as difficult, risky and expensive to get community, farm-scale and rural renewable projects off the ground”.


According to the most recent Savills Estate Benchmarking survey, 70% of landowners have assessed the renewable energy potential of their estate, with another 12% planning to do so within a 12-month period. However, a staggering 72% felt that capital cost and availability of funds was the main challenge to proceeding with a renewable project, while a further 22% cited planning hurdles.


Green continued, “Farm and community-scale renewable energy generation offers significant opportunities for Scotland’s landowners and managers to diversify their risk, deliver additional revenue streams and hedge against future energy price rises. Indeed, land is the key asset in order to produce energy, but the conditions for investment need to be spot-on”. He ended his address by saying, “Scotland can and must continue to be a pioneer of renewable energy technologies, but this needs to happen in a context of global energy demand and technology development. It is all too easy for energy to become a political football, but, as an industry, we need to stand above the rhetoric and focus on the future of rural and community energy generation”.


David Young Editor


FOREST BIOENERGY REVIEW Volume 4, Number 23 - July 2014 Contact information


PUBLISHER &


EDITORIAL DIRECTOR Vince Maynard KVJ Enterprises Tralee, Hillcrest Road,


Edenbridge, Kent, TN8 6JS, UK Tel: +44 (0) 1732 505724 Mobile: +44 (0) 7747 002286 Email:


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EDITOR David Young


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PRODUCTION Anthony Wiffen Anton Print Solutions Tel: +44 (0) 1622 850063 Mobile: +44 (0) 7557 280 769 Email: anton_print_1@mac.com


PRINTING Manor Creative Eastbourne, East Sussex, UK


Tel: +44 (0) 1323 514400 PIPE SYSTEMS The advantages of ‘plastic’ piping


In this issue INDUSTRY NEWS


What’s happening in the world of forest bioenergy?


2


2 AEBIOM Flue gas heat recovery at Rovaniemen Energia 5


Industry associations welcome renewable heating strategy DISTRICT HEATING


6


6 8


8 PRODUCTS


Introducing new equipment and services EVENTS


Conferences and exhibitions past and future


Front cover: The use of pre-insulated ‘plastic’ piping can offer significant advantages when taking heat loss and overall system life cycle cost into account – see page 8.


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