The EUCANWin concept
Feedstock supply
Challenge
Despite ongoing research efforts, harvesting, quality and cost of forest biomass remains a significant challenge for the bioenergy sector due to the lack of accurate volume estimations, minimal operational experience of practitioners, challenging economics and a lack of transparency in the supply chain.
EUCANWin! solutions
EUCANWin! will build a prototype Forest Biomass Atlas that can be applied across Canada as an open internet service, enabling a more accurate evaluation of forest biomass resources. This will build on an existing European Biomass Atlas that has been developed and preliminarily validated for the Nordic and Baltic countries.
Partners will analyse the feasibility of tree-length harvesting in Nordic conditions, as a technology transfer from Canada. This approach is a very effective harvesting method, particularly for the large-scale production of biomass, but more research is needed to determine the suitability of tree length harvesting in Europe.
EUCANWin! will develop and test a prototype On-Board Intelligent Biomass Analyser. The device, with artificial intelligence and self-learning capabilities, automatically measures biomass quality parameters to facilitate decision making concerning the allocation of cargo.
Biopower production
Challenge
Conventional technologies for power production from biomass (biopower) suffer from low electricity efficiencies. Europe and Canada need improved technologies that are more cost-efficient and open the possibility for carbon capture and storage.
EUCANWin! solutions
EUCANWin! will develop and validate the Biomass fired Top Cycle (BTC) concept for high-performance combined heat and power production. This unique concept integrates the gasification of biomass residues with a novel steam-injected gas turbine (Top Cycle).
Partners will develop and validate tools to optimise combustion conditions for minimal NOx formation from fuel bound nitrogen in the BTC’s steam-injected gas turbine.
To meet the need for negative CO2 emissions, EUCANWin! will quantify the CO2 capture cost for the conditions in the BTC process by carrying out simulations to find an optimal configuration.
Expected impacts
Strengthen the European and Canadian technology base and accelerate the development of sustainable fuels to replace fossil fuel alternatives
Increase the viability of advanced biofuels and bioenergy in the EU and Canada and create new market opportunities
Reduce the environmental impact of energy production
Contribute to Mission Innovation, a global initiative to catalyse action and investment in research, development and demonstration to make clean energy affordable, attractive and accessible to all this decade
Duration
4 years
Budget
€3.5 million
Start
01/04/2021
Partners
10
Partners
Our partnership brings together two organisations from Canada and eight from the European Union (Belgium, Finland, Hungary, Spain, Sweden) to enable cross-Atlantic collaboration in the framework of Mission Innovation.
