Cost of heat energy generation from willow biomass

Solid biomass clearly dominates in the structure of renewable energy generation in Poland. Currently, solid agricultural biomass includes mainly cereal and rape straw and agri-food industry waste. However, ultimately, sources of biomass will include perennial energy plants, cultivated on agricultural land as well as willow cultivated in the Eko-Salix system on land unusable for the production of consumption or fodder plants. Willow biomass produced in this system is a valuable feedstock for energy generation with a high calorific value and low moisture, ash and sulphur content. The gasification of chips obtained from 5-year-old willows cultivated in the Eko-Salix system in a prototype gasifier was conducted with no irregularities. The unit cost of generation heat energy from willow chips was around 11.6 €/GJ.