On December 11, 2020, an online meeting of the Working Group of the BIOPLAT-EU project “Energy Crops for Bioenergy Projects: Prospects for Chernihiv Region” took place. More than 50 participants out of more than 70 registered took part in the meeting. More than half of the participants were representatives of local authorities (regional administrations, united territorial communities, city, village and settlement councils) of Chernihiv region. The meeting was also attended by representatives of energy companies that are or plan to be consumers of biomass and consider energy crops as an additional source of supply. Participants also included agricultural companies, farmers, private landowners, investors, financial institutions, development companies, small and medium-sized businesses, scientists and consultants who work or intend to work in the region.
The purpose of the meeting was to present the BIOPLAT-EU project to local stakeholders, to discuss the project objectives and planned activities, and to identify the interest of local authorities and investors in cooperation to promote the bioenergy sector in the region, including energy crops.
The online meeting of the Working Group was opened by Deputy Head of the State Agency for Energy Efficiency Yuriy Shafarenko, who spoke about current legislative initiatives to support the development of the bioenergy sector and in particular the direction of growing energy crops.
Also, the participants were greeted by Deputy Director of the Agricultural Department of Chernihiv Regional State Administration Oleg Krapyvnyi, who noted that in the region there are about 80 thousand hectares of unproductive arable land, located mostly in the Polissya area (60%). Such lands, due to their natural fertility, can yield up to 14 kg/ha of ear crops, so it is more efficient to use these lands for growing energy crops, such as willow and miscanthus.
In the main part of the event, the participants heard Georgii Geletukha (Bioenergy Association of Ukraine), Iryna Gnap (Salix Energy LLC), Leonid Melezhik (Energy Willow LLC), Valerii Katelevskyi (Institute of energy crops and sugar beets), as well as Oleksandra Tryboi and Olha Haidai (SEC Biomass), who spoke about the results of the BIOPLAT-EU identification of unproductive and degraded lands in Chernihiv region, as well as about WebGIS tool for assessing the sustainability of bioenergy projects using energy plants from MUC lands, which is under development in a frame of BIOPLAT-EU project.
Serhiy Khobotnya, Director of the Agency for Sustainable Development of Chernihiv Region, spoke at the discussion. He noted that the prospects of growing energy crops in the region depend on the profitability of such projects, as well as whether it will be possible to attract public funds to such projects and if there is a cunsumers for the resulting biomass.
Roman Shved, Executive Director of Ukrteplo, who also spoke during the discussion, said that the Severska Bio TPP, which is being built near Slavutych, is scheduled to be launched in early 2022. The station will consume about 100 thousand tons of wood chips per year. Severska BioTPP is ready to consume wood chips from energy crops and is interested in suppliers of such biomass.
Speaker`s presentations:
Sustainable innovations in the bioenergy value chain. Kyrylo Tomliak, EBRD Program Manager
Olha Haidai, senior consultant, SEC Biomass, spoke about the possibilities of the future BIOPLAT-EU platform.
The program of the online meeting of stakeholders of Chernihiv region.
!!! If you are interested in the development of the bioenergy sector in your area, please follow the survey by the link. The results of the survey will be sent to the State Agency for Energy Efficiency and will help in the development of relevant legislation to support the sector of energy crops in Ukraine.
This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No818083.