Summary
• Biomass accounts for 13% of Upper Austria’s energy needs.
• The state aims to source all of its energy from renewables by 2030.
• District heating schemes and domestic biomass boilers receive subsidies.
• Oil boilers in new housing are now banned.

The Austrian state of Upper Austria’s energy strategy, introduced in 1994, aims to reduce the region’s dependency on fossil fuels and today more than 30% of its energy is from renewables – just above the country’s 24% – and biomass accounts for 13%.

The state’s big goal is to source all its electricity from renewables and use no fossil fuels for heating by 2030.

With 41% of its 12,000km² covered in forest, Upper Austria has the ideal resource for biomass, and a series of federal and state government measures have provided the carrots and sticks. The carrots range from subsidies for individuals and developers installing biomass boilers rather than gas, to free advice from the state’s energy agency Energiesparverband. It holds around 15,000 advice sessions a year, covering 95% of new buildings or home renovations.

The sticks are legal measures, such as the requirement for every home to have an energy certificate and, perhaps one of the biggest drivers for biomass, the banning of oil heating in new private homes this year.

The development of biomass heating has been two-pronged – individual homes installing pellet-fired boilers, and wood-fired district heating schemes.

District heating

A €3m district heating plant was established in Grieskirchen, a small town west of the state’s capital Linz, in 2004. Owned and operated by a co-operative of 26 farmers, the glulam-framed plant attracted €900,000 of funding from the EU and the federal and state governments. Each of the farmers owns a 2-4% share, and one of the two boiler manufacturers, Fröling, also has a 24% stake in the company.

The 9,000-10,000m³ of wood chip used annually is waste wood provided largely by the member farmers who, between them, own 700ha of forest. The farmers are under contract for 15 years and while they have the right to supply the plant, they are under no obligation.

“The forests are intensively managed,” said farmer and managing director Hans Wilfener. “The good logs go to sawmills and the waste to biomass. Prior to the plant being built the waste was left in the forest.”

The plant’s two boilers – a 3MW Urbas boiler used during the summer, and a 500kW Fröling boiler used in colder weather – will accept wood chip with a moisture content of up to 50%, although most comes in at about 25%. The farmers are paid around e50 per tonne, depending on the moisture content and quality of the material.

The timber-clad storage area can hold 5,000-6,000m³ of wood chips under cover.

Heat is supplied to industrial buildings, schools, public buildings and local residents along 3.5km of super-insulated pipe and transferred to the customers by heat exchangers in the users’ buildings. For customers, linking up to a district heating scheme releases them from annual boiler servicing – and from the noisy chug of a boiler firing up.

Environmental benefits

Initially it was difficult to secure business as in 2004 gas and oil prices were more competitive and the farmers did not want to lower their prices in order to attract business, said Mr Wilfener. Instead, they marketed the heat on its environmental benefits, that it was from local sources and supported local farmers and, of course, the argument for biomass has gained strength as oil and gas prices have risen.

These arguments have also persuaded households in Upper Austria not connected to a district heating scheme to convert from oil to pellet-fired boilers.

Over the past few years the federal government also took advantage of the rapidly rising price of oil by offering a e800 subsidy for people to replace their

oil system with pellets. In addition, the Upper Austrian authority provides a €1,100 subsidy plus additional payments for the size of boiler, up to a combined limit of €3,800.

These government incentives have also benefited Upper Austrian boiler manufacturer Guntamatic. Established in 1963 to produce oil and log boilers, the family-run company made its last oil-fired boiler in 1996 and started producing pellet-fired boilers the following year. It now produces 12,000 biomass boilers a year, 70% of which are exported.

Export manager Walter Wagner said its main export markets are France and Germany and, increasingly, the UK, where its supply partner is Devon-based Treco. A 100kW boiler is the largest the company has installed in the UK to date, said Mr Wagner.