EU - O-BIONORM - Prenormative Work on Sampling and Testing of Solid Biofuels for the Development of Quality Management

The development of Europ. Standards concerning biofuels is seen as a major driver to expand the market for solid biofuels. This expansion is needed to fulfill the aims defined within the European Commission's White Paper on renewable energy and the directive on electricity from renewable energy (EU-Directive COM(2000) 279 final) as well as the political goals on a national level. Against that background, the aim of this project is it to develop an overall quality assurance system for solid biofuels based on sampling and testing in close cooperation with the CEN TC 335 "Solid Biofuels". This should reduce the costs of solid biofuels, improve their quality, support combustion optimizing and emission reduction as well as reduce equipment downtime. Pre-normative investigations have revealed that there are methods for sampling and testing as well as for quality assurance for solid fossil fuels (e. g. hard coal) in use. However, experience has shown that some of these methods cannot be applied completely successfully. This is the case in particular for the new and not so well known biofuels (eg. straw). Although CEN TC 335 "Solid Biofuels" will continue to develop standards on the basis of the best information currently available, it recognizes the strong need for further research in some areas to improve the reliability of selected sampling and testing methods, and the strong need for the development of an overall quality assurance system for solid biofuels taking practical needs.