Sundry biomass components can lay the groundwork for efficient, eco-friendly district heating production. The straw-fired district heating plant in Klemensker is owned by Bornholms Forsyning, a municipal utility company.

The plant supplies approximately 275 households with heat and has an average production of 8,900 MWh per year.

Bornholms Forsyning also owns straw-fired plant in Klemensker and Lobbæk and supplies approximately 435 households in total. A large, newly built woodchip plant in Aakirkeby will be commissioned in January 2010. The new plant is expected to generate 23,000 MWh a year and supply heat to around 1,300 households. This corresponds to a reduction in carbon emissions by about 5,700 tonnes a year.

The plants are supplied with local fuels only: the straw is supplied by local farmers and the woodchips are chipped from sawmill surplus wood and surplus wood felled as part of ordinary forestry operations. In return, the farmers receive the operation’s only residual product: ashes, used as fertiliser in the fields.

There are also two privately owned straw-heating plants on the island generating heat for about 2,300 households – both of which will be enlarged in 2010 to supply 3,000 households all told.

Technical details
Straw-fired district heating plant in Klemensker supplying approximately 275 households with heat.

• Average production per year: 8,900 MWh.
• Average amount of biomass used per year: 2,200 tonnes of straw.
• Energy efficiency above 90 %.
• No CO2-emission.
• Reuse of ashes as fertilizer.

Klemensker district heating plant is owned by the municipal utility Bornholms Forsyning that produces straw- and woodchip-fired district heating on several plants on Bornholm. The utility also supplies clean water to about one-third of the island’s inhabitants, and manages the sewer system and wastewater treatment for the entire island.