Bord na Móna plc
BnM
Bord na Móna’s vision ‘Naturally Driven' underpins Bord na Móna’s mission, objectives, strategy and values and sets out a clear sustainable path for the company into the future.
ID: 150712220857-50
Lobbying Activity
Response to Update of the 2012 Bioeconomy Strategy
20 Mar 2018
Over 80 years ago, Bord na Móna was established by the Irish Government as a state owned company with a mandate to develop Ireland’s peat resources for the economic benefit of Ireland. This peat was used to generate electricity for Irish towns and villages, but more than this, it generated jobs and built communities.
Peat fired electricity generation continues to be important in Ireland, supporting energy security and independence and sustaining local jobs and communities in rural regions. Peat accounted for over 12% of the fuel mix used to generate electricity In Ireland in 2015.
Today, Bord na Móna is transitioning its businesses to 100% renewable energy sources with 50% of the electricity Bord na Mona generates now coming from renewable sources. A key part of this transition is the company’s move to peat free electricity generation by 2030. Bord na Mona has identified biomass as a strategic requirement in this transition and sees this as an opportunity to provide energy security into the future.
Peat-fired, and increasingly co-fired, electricity generation in Ireland is an important provider of employment for European citizens living in a disadvantaged rural region on the periphery of the European Union. In 2015 Bord na Mona’s peat harvesting and biomass operations directly employed over 1,200 people. This transition from peat to biomass and renewables must be achieved in a sustainable way that does not harm but successfully transforms the communities in which Bord na Mona operates and ensures no disadvantaged region is left behind while other more favoured regions prosper.
The concept of a just transition from fossil fuels to renewables underpins and necessitates the phased transition from peat-fired electricity generation to 100% biomass powered generation.
Bord na Móna began co-firing with Biomass at its Edenderry Power Station in 2008. Since then, biomass volumes have increased year-on-year with usage reaching 450,000 tonnes in 2017. Over the past year Edenderry Power has co-fired at an average rate of 44%. The remaining peat-fired electricity generation stations plan to co-fire from 2020 with a minimum co-firing rate of 40% biomass. This rate of co-firing will continue to be increased, reaching 100% biomass by 2030.
Initially, Bord na Mona has been heavily focused on wood fibre based biomass such as: forestry residues; sawmill residues; pulpwood; energy crops such as willow; imported woodchip and pellets.
Security of energy supply is an important issue in Ireland (in 2015, 85% of the energy used in Ireland was imported) and Ireland needs to lessen its requirement for imported biomass and develop its indigenous biomass capability. To this end Bord na Mona has a strategy to maximise indigenous forest residue and continue to lobby the Irish Government for the reintroduction of State support for bioenergy crops.
Co-firing of peat with biomass should be recognised in the EU Bioeconomy Strategy as a part of this strategy which will in a practical and effective manner support and deliver real carbon reduction and the transition to renewables.
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