LIFE
& Bioenergy
The EU LIFE Programme The LIFE programme is the EU’s funding instrument for the environment and climate action. Since 1992 it has co-financed pilot and demonstration projects that contribute to the implementation and development of EU environment policy and legislation. LIFE projects have developed and demonstrated new technologies and methodologies to exploit renewable energy sources. The latter facilitates the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions and demonstrates ways of reducing the EU’s dependence on imported energy. Of the many energy-related projects supported by LIFE to date, some 80 projects exclusively deal with bioenergy in order to replace fossil fuels with sustainable biofuels or bioliquids. The LIFE programme has supported a wide range of biogas-related projects that demonstrate innovative anaerobic digestion and gasification techniques to produce biogas from biodegradable waste – e.g. municipal solid waste, manure and slurry – to produce heat and power. Furthermore, LIFE has backed projects which develop pioneer technologies for biomethane production either for injection into a natural gas pipeline or for usage as a fuel for vehicles. Some projects have also dealt with state of the art techniques for the capture and use of methane from landfills to generate heat and electricity. The programme also supported sustainably-harvested biomass from Natura 2000 sites or abandoned agricultural and industrial sites to generate heat and electricity. Other projects produced high-quality pellets from the sustainable use of logging residues. Finally, LIFE currently supports projects on the development strategies of ‘third-generation’ biofuels, in order to investigate various algal cultivation methods and their potential application in biofuel refineries. Two successful LIFE projects are profiled below, followed by a list of 14 other notable projects. Further details about these, plus more than 60 other projects on bioenergy, can be found in the LIFE project database: ec.europa.eu/environment/life/project/Projects/
M A N A G I N G A G R I C U L T U R A L R E S I D U E S
Title: SMARt-CHP - Demonstration of a small-scale mobile agricultural residue gasification unit for decentralized combined heat and power production
Title: Sludge’s Wealth - Ennobling of sludge for energy use and industrial
Project number: LIFE08 ENV/GR/000576
Beneficiary: COOMI SOC.COOP. (SMEs enterprise)
Beneficiary: Research Committee Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (University)
Email: d.marangoni@coomi.it
Project number: LIFE09 ENV/IT/000186
Website: www.coomi.it/life.html
Email: jimmer@auth.gr
SMARt-CHP
Sludge’s Wealth
The SMARt-CHP project demonstrated an innovative, small-scale, “mobile” heat and power production unit which relies on the exploitation of agricultural residues, in rural areas. This unit promotes the concept of bioenergy use via a decentralized electrical energy production unit - it operates close to the place of feedstock origin – thus minimising transportation and logistic costs as well as weather uncertainties in the exploitation of biomass wastes.
The Sludge’s Wealth project successfully demonstrated a cost-effective and efficient pilot treatment system for relatively small volumes of biological sludge for offshore oil rigs and similar units that converts biological sludge with 75% humidity into combustible pellets.
The mobile unit couples a gasifier with an internal combustion engine and the generator is enclosed in a container with suitable dimensions for transportation. After the construction of the unit was completed, several biomass residues (forest residues, tree crops, arable and energy crops and nut shells and fruit kernels) were selected in order to test and demonstrate the new technology. The SMARt-CHP unit overall efficiency achieved was 48%, the net electrical efficiency 6% and the thermal efficiency 42%, considering as input the calorific value of biomass (gasification process) plus the calorific value of propane (cogeneration process – gas combusts with propane) and as output both the useful electrical and useful thermal energy produced. SMARt-CHP as an integrated flexible technology has the potential to penetrate the electricity production market and further promote decentralized energy generation which is likely to play a major role in the future.
A portable and small sized 12m-long pilot plant was constructed, based on a hybrid microwave and hot air heating technology (the designed elements include a system to level and convey the sludge into the process, a drying tunnel, the position and number of microwave generators and the electromagnetic field distribution), in order to enhance the sludge and obtaining agglomerates with high calorific value (having a maximum water content of 18%), leading to an increased use of biological sludge in combustion plants. The project team built and assessed a fully operational prototype, which achieved an annual conversion of 650 t of organic sludge with 75% humidity into sludge with 14%-18% of humidity through a highly efficient drying system, enabling the generation of 280 t of pellets with high heating power and easily transportable. It simultaneously ensured the elimination of unpleasant odours and the longer life of the system’s components due to the lack of abrasion in the process.
W A S T E W A T E R T R E A T M E N T
The portability and small size of the plant makes it a very suitable and costeffective option for small towns and specific contexts, like on oil rigs.
Environment
Factsheet-LIFE-Bioenergy.indd 1
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