Biodiesel in Czech Republic

At the present time there are 176 petrol stations which refuel Biodiesel, 15 producers of Biodiesel and 1 manufacturer of machinery for Biodiesel production in Czech Republic. The main car manufacturer Skoda - VW turn out cars, which are adapted for Biodiesel - Skoda Felicia 1,9 D and Skoda Octavia with diesel motor.

Biodiesel in Czech Republic has to contain at minimum 30% of rape oil methylester and 90% of Biodiesel has to be biodegraded during 21 days. Oil components have to be desulphurised and dearomatised. The quality of Biodiesel is controlled by Czech trade inspection.

The Biodiesel has only 5% added value tax (for other goods 22%). The price of Biodiesel was in September/October 1999 approximately 13 – 15 CZK (1EUR = 35 CZK) (lead-free petrol - Super: 26,- CZK; diesel: 20,- CZK).

 

Standardisation
– Solid Biofuel

1 Introduction

CEN, the European standardisation organisation, which members are the national standardisation organisations in the EU- and EFTA-countries, has got a programming mandate on Solid Biofuels. This means that CEN has constituted a working group directty reporting to its Technical Board, which will analyse the need of European standards and propose a work programme to produce standards. In a second step it is foreseen that the Commission will give to CEN an execution mandate to produce European standards in accordance with the proposed work programme. This will be performed in a normal CEN Technical Committee (TC).

2 Scope

For all types of solid biofuels develop European standards (EN) regarding terminology, classification, sampling and preparation of samples and chemical, physical and mechanical test methods.

3 Purpose

Summarising the reasons for making common European standards, the purpose is:

·        Simplifing communication between fuel suppliers and customers.

·        Assuring that heating equipment and solid biofuels are designed for each other.

·        Assuring that the delivered fuel has the quality, which is specified in the technical requirements.

·        Providing the market with tools to determine the economic value of delivered fuels

·        Producing a common way to control and regulate the environmental and human safety demands of the authorities.

4 Organisation of the CEN project

4.1 Programming stage

The work is organised direct under CEN/BT (Technical Board) in a working group and Sweden (STG) is prepared to take the responsibility for the project with a secretariat including a convenor and a secretary.

Other countries, Sweden as well, take part in the working group through their national mirror groups organised by the national standardisation organisations. The main idea is that a lot of the base material will be made by the co-operating EU-projects (one is co-ordinated by the University of Stuttgart and the other by Green Land, a British consulting company.) In some cases the discussions must take place directly within the WG. Such discussions should be prepared in ad hoc-groups directly under the WG.

It is important that the national members of AEBIOM are in close contact with both their own national standardisation organisations and national representatives of the two projects, "Stuttgart" and "Green Land".

4.2 Execution stage

When CEN/BT and the commission in co-operation have decided upon a work programme, i.e. which European standards to prepare, the CEN/BT will establish a technical committee, CEN/TC Solid Biofuels, to execute the mission.

This phase of the project can be organised as follows:

- One technical committee TC xy - Solid Biofuels. Sweden is prepared to take the responsibility for the TC-secretariat.

- Four working groups within the following subjects: Terminology, classification, sampling and preparation of samples and test methods (chemical, physical and mechanical). Sweden is prepared to take the responsibility for the secretariat of one working group.

5 Time schedule

Programming stage: September 1998 - December 1999

Execution stage: January 2000 - December 2003

6 Present status

The important question is how recovered fuels will fit in the project. At the CEN/BT/WG 108 Solid Biofuels joint meeting with the FAIR and THERMIE Consortias in Stockholm, September 14 – 15, the opinions were divided between the member countries: One half wanted to include it and the other wanted to exclude it. In order not to get stuck in this discussion at this steering committee, it was opted for a different approach: a discussion on the preliminary structure of a future TC. The reason for this approach is that a TC structure reflects its work programme. During this discussion, it became clear that a future Technical Committee (with a wide scope) could take "on board" waste-derived recovered fuels. But the work programme for standards on recovered fuels will have to be elaborated/finalised inside the future technical committee and not inside BT/WG 108. Following these discussions, it was the intention of this Steering Committee meeting to make a proposal of a future structure for a Technical Committee which can be sent to the CEN/BT (Technical Board) for a decision.

The steering committee also noted that it is the future TC itself that decides on its working structure and final work programme.

The Commission’s position, which has been reached in common with DG XI, XII and XVII, reflects that fuels can be defined into non contaminated (only mechanical processing) and contaminated (those which have undergone chemical processing). At present the Commission does not see any justification to put borderlines between waste recovered fuels.

The Commission will ask the opinion of the Waste Management Committee on the scope of its forthcoming mandate to CEN. In particular, the views and advice of the Members States are requested on the opportunity to include "waste recovered fuels" in this forthcoming mandate. Would the Commission decide not to include in its mandate to CEN "waste recovered fuels", CEN can still decide to go ahead (without mandate) with this standardisation project.

The Steering Committee Recommendations for future work are shown below:

1. The Steering Committee recommends to the BT/WG 108 to propose to the BT that a Technical Committee with the following provisional title and scope will be set up:

Title: "Solid Biofuels, Peat and Solid Recovered Fuels" (Provisional)

Scope: "To develop standards on Terminology, Classification systems based on fuel specifications, Sampling and test methods for solid biofuels, peat and solid recovered fuels" (Provisional)

The Steering Committee notes that the decision on how to organise the work is in the remit of the Technical Committee itself.

2. The Steering Committee recommends that the work of BT/WG 108 "Solid Biofuels" has to be continued as planned for the chemically untreated biomass.

The Steering Committee recognises that there is a common strong need – with the aim of CO₂ reduction and increased recycling in mind - to elaborate standards for recovered fuels and recommends to the Waste Management Committee (WMC) to take this need into consideration when it gives its advice. The Steering Committee notes that a Commission mandate to CEN for Standardisation work on Recovered fuels (from biological and non-biological origin as well as mixtures of those two) will depend on the advice of the WMC and recommends one mandate for all types of fuels concerned.

It is also noted that, if the WMC's advice would be different, CEN can still develop standards in the specific field without a mandate from the Commission.

The next joint meeting will take place in Brussels on February 7-8, 2000.

Implementation of a wood fired combustion system for heating purposes

Background

The Municipal Company of Communal Management (MPGK) of Jelenia Gora owns a small greenhouse complex, where flowers and plants are cultivated. Two hard coal boilers mainly cover the heat demand of the greenhouses and the subjacent offices with a total capacity of 640 kWth. Main drawbacks of the current situation are:

·        combustion of coal, being a fossil fuel, contributes significantly to the greenhouse effect;

·        the coal fired boilers have a very poor efficiency;

·        the price of local hard coal amounts to 90 EUR/tonne;

·        the coal based system causes strong environmental pollution in the form of dust, CO and SO_x.

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