Between 260,000 and 300,000 tonnes of pellet is produced every year in Croatia, 90% is exported, and the state could change that with laws which would stimulate bigger consumption of energy from renewable sources and wood biomass, according to participants at the sixth International Wood Energy Conference for Biomass and Renewable Energy Sources in Zagreb.
Marijan Kavran, head of Croatian Wood Cluster, said the government can easily change public procurement regulations so that systems which run on fossil fuel must be replaced with facilities that use renewables when their work cycle ends, the national Environmental Protection and Energy Efficiency Fund (FZOEU) reported. Vesna Bukarica, who heads the energy efficiency sector in the FZOEU, said renewable energy use was stimulated with HRK 76.4 million (EUR 10 million) last year. The programme included EUR 1.18 million for 484 biomass boilers in home refurbishment.
Croatia has seen a rise in opposition to the development of biomass systems, which a part of the public does not consider to be a clean solution, fearing they are waste incenerators.
President of the World Bioenergy Association Heinz Kopetz said 17% of the final consumption of energy from renewables in Austria comes from biomass, while renewable energy’s share in total consumption is one third. He added Finland and Sweden already get a third of total energy consumption from biomass. World leaders should strive to cut fossil fuel use by 50% by 2050 to prevent climate change, and fiscal policy is a necessary tool for energy transition, according to Kopetz.
Croatia has seen a rise in opposition to the development of biomass systems, which a part of the public does not consider to be a clean solution, fearing they are waste incenerators, according to Zoran Fabris from Tinjan in Istria, who owns Donis d. o. o., a wood processing factory. He added protests have put the company’s operations at risk, as it invested in the development of a 1.3 MW cogeneration project. Fabris said the local population is supported by some institutions and “eco-lobbies.” A similar problem happened in the town of Vinkovci in the northeast, the other side of the country, to Enerkon d. o. o., its director Stanko Plevnik said. He underscored the projects are undermined also by complex and illogical administrative procedures.
