USAID Clean Energy Investment Project and the air conditioning, heating, cooling and ventilation group within the Chamber of Commerce organized a presentation of the Analysis for Efficient Biomass Combustion and Heating of Households. The audience were local producers of different types of biomass stoves and other heating devices, representatives from the academia and other subject area experts.
The analysis, produced with technical assistance from the USAID project, has a goal to offer measures to address the needs for heating of residential areas, specifically households, while improving energy efficiency and reducing greenhouse gas emissions, both locally and globally. The main focus of the analysis are biomass stoves, which currently in Macedonia are 17 years old on average, according to a World Bank assessment. Although biomass is a renewable source of energy, it can’t be used in indefinite quantities without any cautionary measures.
The analysis emphasizes the fact that Macedonia should strive towards attaining highest possible efficiency in biomass consumption. In addition to elaborating the households energy consumption in Macedonia, the analysis also includes a case study on average household’s heating energy needs, and an assessment of the economic and social aspects of the replacement of old, inefficient stoves. It also provides info on the available technologies on the Macedonian market in this respect.
The overall goal for Macedonia is to improve energy efficiency, to increase the appropriate use of renewables, to promote the use of new efficient technologies, to raise public awareness in this respect, to consider introducing stimulative measures to replace stoves with new, more efficient ones, and to stimulate the local production of efficient biomass stoves. All of these proposed activities should result in enhanced quality of living for householders and ability to heat larger quantities of residential areas with lower quantities of biomass.
