UNDP to help Belarus with improving energy effectiveness, energy saving

He remarked, the final seminar of the UNDP-GEF project “Biomass utilisation for heating and hot water supply in the Republic of Belarus” took place in the town of Radoshkovichi (Minsk oblast) on April 23. This project aka Biomass Energy was the first large-scale project of the kind in the country. Its implementation lasted for almost five years. The GEF put $3.37 million into the project.

The project is aimed at decreasing greenhouse gas emissions on the global scale through substituting fossil fuels with renewable ones such as firewood. Within 15 years greenhouse gas emissions are supposed to shrink by 1 million tonnes thanks to firewood-fired electric power plants the project has created.

The international scientific community blames the burning of fossil fuels as the main reason for the present global climate changes, said coordinator of UNDP ecological projects Dmitry Golubovsky. Lack of immediate radical changes in the energy policy of countries with a view to largely reducing greenhouse gas emissions can lead to irreversible consequences for the entire mankind. The cost of the failure to act could become excessive while investments necessary for alleviating consequences of climate changes and adaptation to a new world could exceed the investments required to make the transition to a less carbon-intensive economy by many times over. It is pilot projects similar to the Biomass Energy that can play the key role in removing the existing barriers on the way of the wide application of climate-neutral technologies, Dmitry Golubovsky is convinced.

As part of the project five demonstrational facilities were set up, including a boiler house (two boilers 1MW each), three mini cogeneration plants with the capacity varying from 1.5MW to 2.5MW. An enterprise has been established to procure, process and deliver wood chips (60,000 cubic metres per annum). Besides, working assets for bioenergy with primary capitalization in excess of $3 million has been created. A geographical information system, which includes databases about the country’s boiler houses, their heat capacity, forest resources, timber procurement plans for up to 10 years, wood processing companies, transportation, has been developed as a new planning instrument for developing bioenergy in Belarus. The geographical information system is a contemporary instrument for planning bioenergy industry on the national and local levels.

In 2004 the government of Belarus adopted a programme meant to ensure that by 2012 25% of the country’s energy is produced using locally available fuels. Firewood is one of the key sources for the planned growth. In Austria, the Czech Republic, Finland, and Sweden intensive educational courses were arranged for specialists and executives of municipal authorities, regional and oblast administrations for the sake of sharing cutting-edge practices.

The Biomass Energy project was developed following an initiative of the Energy Effectiveness Committee under the Council of Ministers of Belarus (the Energy Effectiveness Department of the State Standardisation Committee at present), the UNDP and the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe. On the Belarusian side the project was implemented and financed by the Energy Effectiveness Department of the State Standardisation Committee.

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