Another busy day. Met Peter Heydorn at 0730h in Ebeltoft, Jutland and we took the car ferry to Zealand. Peter has been generous with his time and I am grateful to the NZ Danish Trade Commissioner, Jakob Andersen, for the introduction. Peter is very knowledgeable about matters environmental and energy-related, and has worked on many environmental engineering and energy projects for the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs. You can contact him at phk@heycon.dk if you are looking for advice on international bioenergy projects. Peter has been to New Zealand recently and my colleague Mark Windsor at EECA has seen his waste-to-energy (W2E) presentation in Auckland.

Our first stop on Zealand was at the Danish National Laboratory for Renewable Energy at Risø. You can read about their work at http://www.risoe.dk/Research/sustainable_energy.aspx . There I was lucky enough to spend some time with a senior researcher in the Biosystems division,  http://www.risoe.dk/About_risoe/research_departments/BIO.aspx  Anne Belinda Thomsen. Anne Belinda gave me a very good overview of the unique capabilities of Risø, and their work on biorefinery for energy and biomaterials. Anne Belinda has some unique work on enzymes and fermentation. I was particularly impressed with the life cycle and sustainability aspects of their work - an integrated approach, working closely with colleagues in the bioresources area, who focus on nutrient balances and other systems issues associated with biomass.

Next stop was Copenhagen and a meeting at the Danish Energy Agency with Finn Bertelsen, who works on bioenergy for the Energy Supply and Renewable Energy division. Their function is the overall planning of Denmark's electricity, heat and natural gas supply. The goal is to develop a socioeconomically and environmentally optimal energy sector for the benefit of consumers. You can see some of the interesting bioenergy facts that Finn gave me at http://www.izes.de/cms/upload/pdf/Finn_Bertelsen.pdf  . Some other snippets from that meeting:

• Cogen sold back into the Scandinavian spot market, Nordpool
• All electricity from biogas, Stirling engines, biomass and gasification gets 75 ore/kWh feed-in tarrifs
• When they started on biomass for direct heat in the early 90s they used grants, but now use tax.
• As oil prices decreased in the '90s they increased taxes to ensure biomass remained competitive.
• 25% of DH is from W2E
• When running grants on boilers, the most efficient boilers got the highest grants, which incentivised efficient boiler development (use in NZ???)
• Chips are DK35 /GJ, pellets 45/GJ
• DEA subsidise a testing station in Århus for new boilers up to 300 kW. This provides manufacturers and purchasers with good verified performance information on which to make decisions. It's at the www.Teknologisk institute.dk

I'm 'biomassed out' after all this racing round - having a rest for a day or two. Your humble correspondent will report after Elmia Woods http://www.elmia.se/en/wood/