Biomass R&D in Austria - an overview

The complementary role of national and international research

R&D programmes tend to develop a considerable degree of inertia and to become entrenched in certain lines of research. For this reason the division into national programmes and an international agenda is important to sustain different niches for R&D. In the particular case of Austrian national bioenergy R&D programmes this niche is research on options for using biomass as a source of heat by direct combustion. An exemption to this general focus is the successful development of biodiesel and biomass co-combustion and gasification technologies.

The reason for this focus on direct combustion technologies is the general consensus in the Austrian bioenergy community that national R&D should be geared at achieving progress in biomass use in the medium and short term, i.e. acknowledging the present national and international framework conditions. Under these conditions the only feasible markets for biomass use in Austria are domestic heating, process heat and district heating. Market niches exist for combined heat and power production in forest industry, and - in the future - large district heating systems.

Committed policies to enhance bioenergy use have been implemented in several of Austria´s Federal Provinces. They have shown that any attempt to introduce changes in the energy system has to overcome complex nontechnical barriers.

Thus research on non technical barriers and strategies to overcome them has become another focus of Austrian biomass R&D.

Contact: Österreichische Energieagentur

Driving forces of national bioenergy R&D

Financial incentives for bioenergy systems were a significant driving force, particularly for industrial bioenergy R&D, as they created a strong market demand for good equipment. Other important driving forces were the establishment of a national testing site for wood boilers in Wieselburg, a public competition for the best small scale woodchip boiler and the introduction of strict emission standards both for small and large systems. Clearly defined R&D agenda of the Federal Ministry of Research and Transport have contributed to focusing research.

Trends for the future

A new agenda for national bioenergy R&D was published in 1999. It involves a detailed analysis of technical as well as non-technical research tasks which need to be addressed to allow further progress in bioenergy utilisation in Austria. Future research tasks include

• the development of bioenergy systems for the heating requirements of low energy houses,
• the further development of systems which combine biomass and solar energy,
• advanced pellet boilers, and
• non-technical research regarding strategies for increased market penetration of bioenergy.
• Furthermore the problem of enhancing the performance of existing biomass district heating systems will have to be adressed and cost-effective solutions will have to be developed for further emission reduction, and for the efficient central heating of small agglomerations of houses ("micro grids").
• In view of the considerable contribution of methane emissions to the greenhouse effect future research will also place a new focus on enhancing biogas use from anaerobic processes.

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