The Soy Network Switzerland attaches great importance to sustainability. The milk sector organization, the Association of Swiss Feed Manufacturers (VSF) and UFA AG, together with the Soy Network Switzerland, have agreed to use only soy for dairy cattle feed in Switzerland that complies 100 percent with the requirements of the Soy Network Switzerland.

The signatories to the agreement undertake to use only soy for dairy cattle feed that complies 100 percent with the requirements of the Swiss Soy Network. With the help of the code, the BO Milch wants to highlight an important distinguishing feature from foreign competitors in the increasingly tough market environment for milk and dairy products. Not least for this reason, BO Milch is a new member of the Swiss Soy Network.

The Soy Network Switzerland is committed to responsible cultivation and sustainable procurement of feed soy. The network's soy procurers import 99 percent responsibly produced soy. The import share of this soy in the total market was at least 96 percent in 2017. Already 40 percent of the feed soy currently comes from Europe.

In addition to the Soy Network Switzerland, the Association of Swiss Feed Manufacturers (VSF) and UFA AG have also signed the agreement. Together they cover by far the largest part of the domestic compound feed market.

The Swiss Soy Network:

The Soy Network Switzerland association was founded in 2011 in response to the ecological and social problems of soy cultivation. Buzzwords such as deforestation of rainforests, loss of biodiversity, input of pesticides and nutrients into ground and surface waters are among the problems of soy cultivation. The Soy Network would like to counteract these problems with the help of the following solutions: Control of the GMO-free status of the farms and the flow of goods by independent bodies No clearing of primary forest areas International sustainability standards Expansion of protein production in Europe Use of potentially harmful pesticides and fertilizers to be reduced Compliance with labor rights The Swiss Soy Network includes major distributors, feed procurers, environmental and label organizations, and Swiss farmers' organizations. For more information www.sojanetzwerk.ch

The new EU energy rules, an instrument for monitoring progress in climate and energy policy ("governance regulation"), require member states to submit national energy and climate plans for the period up to 2030 by the end of 2019, according to a release from the German Environment Ministry. This will develop long-term strategies for climate protection. Germany has already adopted such a long-term strategy for climate protection with its Climate Protection Plan 2050. Whether Switzerland is on the same path is written elsewhere. In any case, the EU Commission has committed itself to presenting a strategy on how Europe can achieve greenhouse gas neutrality as quickly as possible.

The Commission presented a proposal for this on November 28.

The recast of the Energy Efficiency Directive sets an energy savings target for 2030 of at least 32.5 percent compared with the trend. This represents an increase on the Commission's proposal, which was 30 percent. A target of 20 percent already applies for 2020. There is still a lot of untapped potential in energy efficiency.

Renewable Energies Directive

The new version of the Renewable Energies Directive stipulates that at least 32 percent of energy consumption (electricity, heat and transport) in the EU should come from renewable energies by 2030. The EU is well on track with the previously applicable target of 20 percent by 2020. The new 32 percent target is significantly more ambitious than the 27 percent originally proposed by the Commission. In the heating sector, member states are to increase the share of renewable energies by at least 1.1 percentage points per year.

In the transport sector, the share of renewable energies is to rise to 14 percent by 2030. In 2016, it was around seven percent.

The Renewable Energies Directive also specifies the extent to which biofuels can be counted. As before, the share of conventional biofuels from arable crops in total energy consumption in transport may not exceed seven percent. What is new is that member states can also stipulate a share of conventional biofuels of less than seven percent without having to compensate for this elsewhere. In line with the status quo, the German government only wants to count conventional biofuels up to a maximum share of 5.3 percent.

The crediting of biofuels from energy crops whose cultivation contributes to the deforestation of rainforests will be frozen at the 2019 level and is to be phased out completely in the period from 2023 to 2030. This is likely to have an impact on the use of palm oil in particular. The details of this are currently being worked out.

The EU action plan aims to gear the European financial sector more strongly to financing longer-term, sustainable growth. This requires far-reaching measures, including legislative ones, in terms of reporting, accounting, regulation and corporate governance.

The action plan presented at the beginning of March 2018 is based on the final report of a high-level expert group on sustainable finance (HLEG) presented in January, whose recommendations were largely adopted. For a few weeks now, there has been a significant increase in interest.

Proposals of the expert group

Far-reaching measures, including legislative ones, are needed to implement the proposals, including accounting, corporate governance, risk management and regulatory steps. In particular, the time horizon for accounting and the recognition of risks must be significantly extended in order to adequately reflect the effects of climate change and the energy transition, for example.

The action plan in brief:

The following is an attempt to summarize the EU Commission's plan, outlined on twenty pages, in brief and with regard to its practical implications for the banking industry:

 

1. Classification of economic activities in terms of their contribution to sustainable development ("taxonomy").

The main criteria to be applied are climate change, environmental impacts and social impacts. Initially, climate change and the energy transition will be the focus of a technical expert group

 

2. Standards/seals of approval for "green" financial products

Initially, the Commission aims to standardize "green" bonds, so-called greenbonds. Later, other products are to be tested on the basis of the taxonomy

 

3. Promotion of investments in sustainable projects

Building advisory capacity for sustainable infrastructure projects in the EU and neighboring countries.

 

4. Inclusion of sustainability in financial consulting

Modification of the distribution directives for banks (MiFID II) and insurance companies (IDD, Insurance Distribution Delegated Acts). Note: These points were not so clearly included in the expert recommendation

 

5. Quality benchmarks for sustainability

Creation of more transparency and comparability of sustainability criteria

 

6. Better integration of sustainability in ratings and market research

Relevance for credit rating and methodology of sustainability ratings

 

7. Clarification of the obligations of investors and asset managers

The expert report clearly called for a "fiduciary duty" of investors for future generations. However, this is hardly anchored in constitutional law, e.g. corresponding sustainability requirements are missing in the German Basic Law

 

8. Consideration of sustainability criteria in risk management and regulation

The first step will focus primarily on climate risks and the energy transition. Specifically, this is the implementation of the proposals of the Task Force for Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) set up by the Financial Stability Board.

 

Some supervisory authorities, such as the German Bundesbank, have explicitly called for this, and the Dutch central bank has already announced a stress test for climate risks at banks

 

9. Expansion of reporting and accounting obligations

Far-reaching adjustments are required here with regard to materiality in reporting and, above all, to the time horizon or reference to the future.

 

10. Strengthening sustainability aspects in corporate management and capital market communications

Company managements are to be obliged to formulate and publish sustainability strategies. According to the ideas of the action plan, the pressure of the capital markets to act in the short term in companies could be reduced, among other things, by holding periods and turnover limits for asset managers.

Provided that the European Parliament follows the action plan, the measures may take effect within a few months, for example through adjustments to MiFID II (banks) and IDD (insurance sales) regulatives. It was to be expected that the EU Commission would take action in this direction, but parts of the banking industry will probably be surprised at how quickly and far-reaching the interventions can be.

More details on the interpretations of the EU Action Plan can be found at here (in English) or also here 

 

Manfred Stüttgen, head of the "IFZ Sustainable Investments Study 2018," observes a trend: "Theme funds usually take up contemporary debates, currently environmental issues such as climate change or social challenges such as demographic change," says Stüttgen. Theme funds with a focus on the environment and climate are growing disproportionately.

They are benefiting from the demand for green bonds. More than CHF 1 billion in new money has flowed into these funds. The range of funds with a social theme, such as demography, generational equity or gender diversity, is also broadening. These funds are still relatively young compared to other thematic funds (e.g. water).

Sustainable investments are seen as a successful innovation and are reaching an increasingly broad investor base: The number of sustainable mutual funds increases year-on-year from 336 to 423 funds (+26 percent). The assets under management in these funds grow from 109 to 157 billion Swiss francs (+44 percent). This is shown in the study by the Institute of Financial Services Zug IFZ of the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts, which analyzes sustainable investment funds with public sales approval in Switzerland.

CHF 21 billion in new money

Investors increasingly prefer funds that take into account environmental, social or governance-specific factors in addition to financial criteria. Of the 8,788 mutual funds licensed for distribution in Switzerland, 423 funds are described as sustainable according to the study. Existing sustainable funds attracted CHF 21 billion in new money over the observation period. This corresponds to a net inflow of funds of around 20 percent. Relative to fund assets, sustainable funds thus attract twice as much new money as the overall market of all mutual funds in Switzerland.

Swiss fund providers are particularly active
The 423 funds are offered by 119 fund providers. Among the ten largest institutions with the highest assets under management in sustainable mutual funds, four are Swiss (see Figure 2). Swiss providers are also increasingly making their presence felt with newly launched sustainable funds: Ten local institutions launched more than two new sustainability funds during the year under review. In addition to one major bank, these include selected cantonal banks and Swiss asset managers.

Passive funds become more relevant
Of the 423 sustainable funds, actively managed funds continue to have a clear preponderance (see Figure 4). Passive funds account for only 10 percent, but the growth rates are considerable: Passive sustainable funds record new money inflow rates of 33 percent. This is significantly higher than for passively managed conventional funds. Although banks and fund providers have expanded the range of passive sustainable funds by almost 50 percent over the past year, this offering remains limited.

Exclusion criteria, positive selection, and norm-based screening are common
A key differentiation criterion for sustainable funds is the sustainability strategy implemented in the investment process. In most cases, different strategies are combined: 78 percent of the 423 sustainable funds exclude certain investment objects, such as producers of certain weapons, for environmental, social or governance-specific considerations (exclusion criteria). 64 percent select investment objects that fulfill social-ecological criteria such as environmental protection particularly well (positive selection). 61 percent of the funds screen their investments for compliance with international standards such as the United Nations Global Compact (standards-based screening).
No consensus on the assessment of sustainability performance

The study shows how "sustainability" can be measured and assessed by companies. In practice, there is often disagreement about the "right" assessment criteria. Rating agencies provide assistance here in assessing the sustainability performance of companies.

Effect of funds difficult to measure
"At present, it is still difficult to measure the impact of sustainable funds," says Manfred Stüttgen. However, fund providers are trying to meet this requirement with so-called impact funds: They want to measure and report the social and ecological impact. Transparent sustainability reporting is not only important for fund providers. Measurable sustainability indicators are also becoming increasingly relevant for pension funds due to risk considerations in the investment process.

The study takes a detailed look at the implementation of sustainability criteria in the investment process of Swiss pension funds, using practical examples.

The "Sustainable Investments Study 2018" can be ordered at ifz@hslu.ch for 190 Swiss francs. A digital version of the study is available here available.

 

 

The "Drehscheibe Kreislaufwirtschaft Schweiz" is committed to ensuring that, among other things, sustainable circular economy indicators circulate instead of simple collection quotas. This is intended to make the circular economy measurable in its entirety. The design-for-recycling will be optimized by means of sector recommendations from the industries concerned, which will also enable the use of recyclates to be further improved. Finally, the necessary knowledge will be presented and shared in a way that is appropriate to the target group.

Switzerland has a very good starting position with its well-established recycling within the two recycling pillars (material and thermal, without landfilling untreated waste). The population supports selective separate collection, which is an essential element for high-quality recyclate. The guiding principles of the Resources Trialogue, which were developed in a broad consensus, are a good basis for further optimization.

"Design-for-Recycling," the key element

Circular economy is not about maximizing collection rates, but starts at the very front of the value chain: for example, in the choice of materials and the design of packaging and products. Design-for-recycling is a key element for improved circularity. Another important point is the demand for recyclate: How can this be further increased?

What framework and possible incentives are needed for this? Finally, raising awareness of circular capability is also an important topic. Here, we want to sensitize tomorrow's decision-makers to the success factors of a circular economy and what options for action exist.

Circular Economy Switzerland

The circular economy hub Switzerland will be set up with partners from business and recycling by spring 2019. On 14.03.2019, we will deal with the goals of the EU in a forum and mirror these with the status in Switzerland. On 14.06.2019 - on the occasion of the presentation of the performance report Swiss Recycling - first results will be shown.

More information about the project and the circular economy, such as individual graphics, can be found here: www.circular-economy.swiss (a french version follows).

 

The reasons that contributed to the Little Ice Age, to the cooling of the Earth are now known. The findings were published in October 2018 in the scientific journal The Cryosphere. In the first half of the 19th century, a series of large volcanic eruptions in the tropics led to a temporary global cooling of the Earth's climate.

In popular scientific accounts, images of Alpine glaciers from the 1850s are often used as a comparison to visualize man-made climate change. However, this is wrong, researchers have now proven using data from ice cores. The scientists led by Michael Sigl of the Paul Scherrer Institute PSI analyzed the air composition archived in the different ice depths and, in particular, the amount of industrial soot.

They thus established the first uninterrupted data series for Central Europe on the amount of industrial soot in the atmosphere for the period from the 1740s to the present.

Volcanic eruptions in the tropics

These data clearly show that industrial soot can hardly be responsible for the melting of Alpine glaciers at that time, which occurred mainly between 1850 and 1875. "By 1875, about 80 percent of the glacier retreat at that time had already been completed," Sigl said. But it wasn't until 1875 that the amount of industrial soot in Central Europe exceeded the amount naturally present in the atmosphere. "Only in the last 20 percent of the retreat could soot possibly have had an influence," Sigl clarifies.

 

The first half of the 19th century was characterized by several large volcanic eruptions in the tropics, whose ejected sulfur particles led to a temporary global cooling. During this final cold phase of the so-called Little Ice Age, the Alpine glaciers once again grew strongly until the middle of the 19th century. Until now, it was thought that their decline from the 1860s onward was also due to the onset of industrialization. But the PSI results now clearly refute this theory:

It was (initially) merely a decline to the previous, undisturbed glacier extent.

1850 is not suitable as a reference year for climate models

"The question of when human influence on the climate begins remains open," Sigl says. And that onset, this study shows, is not necessarily a suitable reference for climate models because of other factors. Sigl estimates that the 1750s are more suitable as a pre-industrial reference time, that is, a time before the Little Ice Age. Even now, whenever the sparse data from past centuries allows, 1750 has been adopted as a reference year when climate models need to compare data from the pre-industrial period with those after the onset of industrialization. "That makes sense, because we now see clearly in our data that the climate in the mid-19th century was not the primal one."

Future climate models take into account soot data

 In model calculations on climate change, the time course of the amount of soot in the atmosphere is also included as one of many variables. "Until now, however, modelers have used an estimate of the respective amount of soot," Sigl said. For the 19th century in particular, this is based only on rough estimates of the individual industrial nations based on energy consumption at the time. For the second half of the 19th century, a linear increase in the amount of soot in the atmosphere has been assumed so far, Sigl said. That this does not correspond to reality can now be proven thanks to the ice core investigations by Sigl and his co-researchers.

The researchers therefore advocate that experimental soot data be included in future model calculations. These models, in turn, form an important part of the report that the IPCC, known as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, issues about every seven years.

"In the IPCC report, the model calculations that mathematically reproduce the climate since 1850 have a central role," emphasizes Margit Schwikowski, head of the project under which the research was conducted. "With our research, we have now contributed to the fact that the scientific groups that create such climate models will be able to draw on experimental data in the field of industrial soot."

http://www.psi.ch

 

In the future, the "Environmental Prize of the Economy" will be awarded in partnership with Swiss Economic Forum. The subsidiary of the NZZ Media Group is launching a new platform for this, the Circular Economy Forum. In addition to the main event at which the prize will be awarded, smaller events will also take the topic of circular economy to the regions, explained Dominik Isler, CEO of Swiss Economic Forum. "We are committed because the future of the economy can only be sustainable," said Dominik Isler.

Fertilizing robot with advantages  

Steve Tanner, a farmer's son, once had to watch his classmates have afternoons off while he helped out in his father's fields. That, he says, was the motivation to study robotics. Later, Tanner founded ecoRobotix together with Aurélien Demaurex - originally a banker. The young company from Yverdon is developing a robot with all-round vision that independently detects weeds in the field and precisely destroys them.

Solar operation makes the robot completely independent in terms of energy supply, even when the sky is overcast. At the same time, it works up to 12 hours a day - thanks to GPS completely without human control. Other environmental benefits: It needs less fertilizer and it doesn't touch crops - "We're protecting nature because no weed killer gets into the food or feed," Demaurex says.

Aurélien Demaurex was able to receive the first-ever Environmental Prize of the Economy for ecoRobotix on Tuesday on the MS Diamant on Lake Lucerne. The prize, initially endowed with 20,000 Swiss francs, is awarded by the Swiss Environmental Foundation. However, some business angels and the Swiss government are already backing this year's nominated companies.

EcoRobotix was founded back in 2011 in Yverdon. Meanwhile, the small company has conducted research and pilot projects in water protection areas of Nestlé Waters Switzerland as well as other European agricultural areas. In May 2018, the company signed a so-called Series B for CHF 10.6 million (EUR 9.2 million) with promising investors.

Among them are Capagro and BASF Venture Capital as well as private financing partners. The award winner from Yverdon is now trying to enter the European agricultural market.

Good prospects: new label

"This award shows us that we are on the right track," Demaurex is quoted as saying in a statement from the Environmental Foundation. "It inspires us to use technology for the environment." The vision of the two founders is that in as little as ten years, robots will be working in all fields while farmers struggle to use them properly.

Bühler Insect Technology Solutions and Carbon Delta also made it to the final of the award. The subsidiary of Uzwil-based millwright Bühler builds systems for the industrial breeding and processing of insects for animal feed. The Zurich-based fintech company Carbon Delta uses its software to help institutional investors assess the carbon footprint and climate risk of their investments.

The central message on the evening of the Environmental Award was that sustainability is no longer at odds with successful business. On the contrary. The nominated companies prove that their products and services are successful on the market not despite, but precisely because of their ecological qualities. The guests at the first award ceremony agreed that all three nominated companies would have been worthy winners.

They all had the potential to trigger the desired change in awareness in the business community.

The selection of future award winners will be made by Go for Impact. The association, founded in February, is made up of the Federal Office for the Environment, economiesuisse, öbu, PUSCH, scienceindustries, Swissmem, Swiss Textiles and WWF. As Kurt Lanz, president of the association and member of the management board of economiesuisse, explained, the candidates are nominated by the association's partners.

The award ceremony on Lake Lucerne was the kick-off for something bigger. Starting in 2019, the "Environmental Business Award" will be presented as part of a new circular economy conference of the Swiss Economic Forum (SEF). SEF CEO Dominik Isler is excited about this new collaboration:

"We want this new circular economy conference to be a showcase both internally and externally, where we can showcase innovative projects from Switzerland. The prize is the ideal complement for this." The final selection will then be made by a jury, he said. In the future, the prize will be endowed with 30,000 Swiss francs.

For more information about the Swiss Business Environment Award, please visit

www.umweltpreis-der-wirtschaft.ch or

www.swisseconomic.ch

When experts talked about the high-rise fire in London, see box, you assumed that the much greater danger to life and limb of residents is not the burning interior, but insulation materials on the outside of the building. But that's only one side of the problem, because these materials only catch fire in five to ten cases a year, according to researchers.

Residential fires: What role does insulation play?

In Germany, an average of over 500 apartment fires break out every day. So the facade is involved in only one in 20,000 fires. As in the London case, most fires originate in the interiors of residential buildings. The number one source of fire is the kitchen. This is where most apartment fires occur due to the large number of electrical appliances.

In addition to technical defects and negligence, arson also plays a role in causing fires. Negligence in smoking or burning candles are also frequent causes of fire. Facade insulation is not one of the causes of fire.

If a fire has started, the first thing to burn is the interior furnishings of the apartment, such as tables, chairs, shelves, cupboards or beds, before the fire causes windows to break, spreads upwards through the floors and in turn attacks the interior furnishings there. Only now is the building insulation in principle in danger. However, since most insulation materials burn extremely poorly, the materials can withstand a fire for a long time. In many cases, mineral materials such as glass or rock wool are used as insulation materials, which cannot burn at all.

In addition to natural insulating materials with appropriate additives, organic materials such as plastic foams are also suitable as insulating materials. For cost reasons, insulation boards made of polystyrene, also known as EPS insulation boards (EPS for expanded polystyrene), are mainly used. In recent years, they have repeatedly been associated with fire incidents and have thus increasingly come under criticism. The material polystyrene is basically combustible.

However, during production of the insulation boards, manufacturers add flame retardants that make the boards flame retardant. "Composite thermal insulation systems made of polystyrene that have been approved in Germany have long been thoroughly tested for their fire behavior in a facade fire test and are sufficiently safe," says Markus Weissert of the Fachverband der Stuckateure für Ausbau und Fassade Baden-Württemberg. "Numerous furnishing components in private households often burn much more easily than building insulation." Above all textiles, furniture as well as PVC floors fall victim to the flames fast - they burn besides inside and not outside at the facade and cause in case of emergency for the inhabitants poisonous smoke gases.

However, even polystyrene can burn and drip after some time at high temperature. In order to minimize the risk of fire in composite thermal insulation systems made of EPS, fire protection is mandatory in multi-family buildings. It prevents the fire from spreading through the insulation to other floors. Homeowners can choose between a lintel protection or a fire protection bar:

In the case of lintel protection, non-combustible insulating material, often rock or mineral wool, is placed above and next to the windows on the outside. With the alternative fire bar, a bar made of non-combustible insulating materials is placed over the windows on every second floor. Fall protection has been required by building law since 1998/1999, the alternative fire bar since 2006/2007.

Fires in finished facade insulation

The intensity and frequency of discussions about burning insulation contrast with the facts. Burning insulation occurs in only 0.005 percent of all residential fires in Germany each year. The cases in which insulation catches fire are mostly facades that are still under construction. Even if the fire starts outside the property, for example from a burning car, fire in a trash container or accumulations of ignited yellow bags, the insulation is in danger earlier than the building interior.

"Homeowners should also make sure when insulating using composite thermal insulation systems that they are systems approved by the building authorities" says Frank Hettler of Zukunft Altbau. "They must also be installed professionally." For even more safety, the choice of a non-combustible facade insulation and the mandatory placement of trash containers or yellow bags at least three meters away from the building. Building energy consultants also help: They provide neutral information about the properties of individual insulation materials and help select a suitable insulation material.

Greenfell Tower: The insulation did not burn

Most of the insulation boards remained intact

After the fire in the "Grenfell Tower" high-rise building in London, it was suspected that the insulation had greatly accelerated the spread of the flames. However, this was not the case at all. Experts such as Werner Eicke-Hennig, an expert at the Energy Institute of Hesse, point this out. Completely burned down is the weather protection from aluminum plastic completely outside at the front. The insulating layer of rigid polyurethane foam (PU) underneath was only slightly burned. The part behind it, about 90 percent, remained intact. (Source: Haustech.de).

 

What happens in a fire and how flammable are building materials? This new graphic from Zukunft provides information about this.

 

 

Not all wood is the same, even when it comes to wood combustion. There are more than half a million wood-burning appliances in Switzerland. The vast majority are fireplaces or tiled stoves. They provide comfortable room heat, but most people do not perceive them as devices for energy production. In contrast, a few tens of thousands of log boilers, pellet and woodchip furnaces, as well as several dozen large wood-fired power plants, are truly tailored to energy production. In this area of professional energy production - from a few to several thousand kW capacity - a continuous renewal process towards even more efficient and even less polluting plants is taking place.

A bouquet of innovations

The Wood Energy Symposium in mid-September vividly demonstrated this innovation process to around 150 participants. During half a day, researchers and industry representatives presented concepts, some of which have already proven themselves on the market. Michael Strassl (ETA Heiztechnik, Hofkirchen/A) reported on a new series of wood chip boilers in the lower output range (20 to 80 kW) that achieve low pollutant levels thanks to an integrated electrostatic particle filter, and this also in the ignition and ember burn-off phase. The device, of which 1000 units have already been delivered since 2016, is aimed primarily at forest owners who want to burn their own wood. Low emissions with high-ash fuels are also the aim of the novel screw grate firing system presented by Dr. Gabriel Barroso (Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts - Technology&Architecture) for a Swiss-Austrian-Swedish project team with Schmid AG energy solutions as an industrial partner. In a research project by Dr. Mohammad Aleysa (Fraunhofer Institute for Building Physics, Stuttgart), the same goal is achieved by ceramic and metallic internals in the combustion chamber.

Better energy yield is the aim of the system called 'Neviro', which Rupert Kaindl (Kaindl Feuerungstechnik GmbH, Lachen/SZ) has developed together with the company OekoSolve AG (Mels-Plons/SG). Here, the hot exhaust gases are used to dry moist wood fuels before they enter the furnace. Wood with relatively high moisture content is also the fuel used to feed the new wood-fired cogeneration plant in Puidoux/VD. These are precisely the characteristics that the clients from the municipality of Puidoux wanted in order to be able to use local wood. The 4.5 MW plant can generate not only heat but also a comparatively large amount of electricity, the latter thanks to the combination of a combined heat and power plant and an ORC turbine, as Dr. Giulio Caimi (Romande Energie Services SA, Morges/VD) reported. Other innovations at the Wood Energy Symposium included very efficient heat storage systems using special storage media and a method for determining the energy content of wood chips (cf. SFOE technical article 'Soviel Energie steckt in Hackschnitzeln', available at www.bfe.admin.ch/CT/biomasse).

Using wood energy and other biomass for process heat

But what does Switzerland actually need wood energy for? Or rather: What is the best use of energy derived from wood as a sustainable energy source? This strategic question was addressed in his keynote speech by Prof. Hanspeter Eicher, co-founder and Chairman of the Board of Directors of the planning company eicher+pauli AG. Eicher put the long-term Swiss heat demand for space heating (approx. 35 °C), hot water (up to 60 °C) and process heat (up to 1000 °C) at 60 to 70 TWh per year, whereby this figure already takes into account the large savings potential in the area of space heating and the further increase in energy reference areas.

Eicher advocated using wood energy and the remaining biomass or energy sources derived from it for efficiency reasons in the longer term only to generate space heating where other energy sources are not available on site, such as heat from groundwater, lake and river water, waste heat from waste incineration plants or wastewater treatment. Wood and biomass are the only renewable energy sources that can be used to provide industrial process heat year-round, Eicher said, showing implemented examples of plants at Coop, Migros and Oberland Energie AG in Wimmis. "Around half of the wood currently used to generate heat in district heating networks should in future be used to generate process heat up to 300 °C or converted into electricity via combined heat and power plants," Eicher urged. If wood energy and other sustainably usable biomass were consistently used to provide process heat, about 80% of the current nationwide demand for process heat (26 TWh/a) could be met. This strategic consideration of Eicher's met with opposition at the Zurich meeting from Andreas Keel, managing director of Holzenergie Schweiz. There are 250,000 forest owners in Switzerland, Keel pointed out, and many of them want to produce heat for themselves from their own forests.

Pollutant reduction for small plants

At the Wood Energy Symposium, there was no disputing the great importance of wood, the second most important renewable energy source in Switzerland after water. The Federal Council's Energy Strategy 2050 envisages full utilization of the domestic potential, said Christoph Plattner, who until recently helped oversee the energy strategy at the Federal Office of Energy. Wood energy will continue to gain importance and "has good prospects for the future," Plattner said.

The energy expert stressed that the expansion of wood energy must take place "without additional immission pollution". In fact, the wood energy industry is confronted with legal requirements to further reduce the emission of solid and gaseous pollutants. In Zurich, Dr. Beat Müller of the Federal Office for the Environment presented the Ordinance on Air Pollution Control (LRV), which has been in force since June 2018 and which, in particular, tightens the requirements for smaller furnaces (under 70 kW) (including lower limits, visual inspections and periodic measurements). "The cantons are now challenged with enforcement," Müller said. At the same time, he announced more far-reaching regulations for the benefit of people and the environment: "We have not yet reached our goal with regard to wood-burning furnaces. The latest revision means a big step forward for small wood furnaces. Further steps will definitely follow."

New approach to ash disposal

The industry is also challenged in the disposal of ash. Wood-fired systems in Switzerland were responsible for 75,000 tons of wood ash in 2016. Since the beginning of 2016, the Ordinance on the Prevention and Disposal of Waste (VVEA) has described how this can be disposed of properly. At the time, the ordinance led to considerable enforcement problems. A revision became necessary shortly after it came into force. The Federal Council has now approved the revised VVEA in September 2018. Now a "practicable solution" is on the table, said Andreas Keel of Holzenergie Schweiz. At the same time, he informed about the HARVE project, with which not only regional disposal solutions but also new ways of recycling wood ash will be developed by 2020.

The conference documentation of the 2018 Wood Energy Symposium supported by the Swiss Federal Office of Energy can be found at: www.holzenergie-symposium.ch

For more technical papers on research, pilot, demonstration and lighthouse projects in the field of wood energy/bioenergy, see. www.bfe.admin.ch/CT/biomasse

 

Proper design of heat networks:

Wood energy is a popular form of energy for supplying heating networks. Thomas Nussbaumer (organizer of the Wood Energy Symposium, owner of the engineering firm Verenum and professor at the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts) presented in Zurich the EXCEL-based tool THENA (for: Thermal Network Analysis) for planning and evaluating district heating networks with up to 400 sub-lines. One basic rule, according to Nussbaumer, is that in order to build heating networks cost-effectively, the smallest permissible diameter should be selected for each sub-strand. (BV)