Italian Forum “uP_running – Valorisation of pruning as energy feedstock”
Bari 15th September 2016 - Fiera del Levante
October
21
2016
The Forum was organized in the frame of the “Fiera del Levante”, an important regional event organized every year in Bari to promote the internationalization of the economy in the south of Italy.
The Forum was planned to point out the main findings resulted from the three previous events held in the Apulian region on the potential activation of bio-energy value chain from agricultural pruning.
By a strict collaboration between UFG and DARe which represent the technical and agrarian partners in the project, 50 attendees, biomass producers (farmers and service companies), machinery builders, plant producers, technical assistance companies, energy producers and regional politicians, participated to the event.
After the introduction of the project and the presentation of the Sector Analysis on the potential bio-energy value chain in the region, some actors presented personal experiences on the topic.
Apulia region has a considerable amount of biomass from agricultural pruning. It’s about 1,2 million tons mostly placed in Foggia and Bari provinces. There are some barriers that hamper the valorization of this feedstock mostly related to the logistics aspect, specifically the harvesting, collection, transport and storage. Some complains about the poor economic value of the biomass residues and the uncertainty about the best biomass product needed by the energy plant the residues are supplied.
Different possible business models were proposed in order to exploit this resource. The activation of one or more business models will take into account the local need and the level of involvement of the stakeholders. The presentation of some experiences were useful to strengthen the awareness on the feasibility of agricultural pruning utilization for bioenergy purpose.
Starting from the main constraints and opportunities, the further step is to prepare an “Action Plan” to identify, discuss and agree about some specific technical and non-technical measures to be applied to favor the bioenergy sector take-off, including regulations, market instruments, funding and incentives, communication actions, and all other factors considered useful to boost a successful and sustainable bioenergy sector.
