Posted on : 5/28/2019

On Friday, May 24 the training for energy managers in local self-government units in "Development of annual biomass balance and preparation of programmes and action plan for the use of biomass in local self-government units" was delivered at the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering in Belgrade.

The objective of the training was to inform the energy managers on the methodology for a quick assessment of the balance of locally available agricultural and woody biomass. After the training, energy managers received appropriate Excel tools that would enable them to process data on local production and consumption of agricultural and woody biomass and to create balances for their municipalities. Given that the use of biomass is essentially local in character, such biomass balances represent a starting point for determining the feasibility and cost-effectiveness of biomass energy projects. Furthermore, these balances and their projections are the starting point for the development of triennial local programmes and annual action plans for the use of biomass for energy generation. To make biomass programmes and plans in different local self-governments comparable, which is important for all levels of decision and policy making, it is necessary to use the uniform methodology and data from relevant sources for the development of these balances.

Lecturers and authors of methodology, professor Branko Glavonjić, PhD, from the Faculty of Forestry in Belgrade and professor Todor Janjić, PhD from the Faculty of Agriculture in Novi Sad explained the structure of material and energy balances of biomass, sources and methods of collecting data on yields and on the use of biomass, how to use Excel tools, how to present and use the results obtained for the development of programmes and plans. The training was specifically focused on available data sources that should be widely available, verifiable and comparable among different local self-government units.

Following the presentation of the methodology, lecturers presented the results of the project for the development of local biomass programmes and plans implemented in 29 municipalities, based on the Public Call to Local Self-Government Units announced in October 2017. Trainees could also see examples of three project proposals for the replacement of fossil fuels with biomass prepared on that occasion.

Another segment of the training was focused on the presentation of the "Green Energy" web portal and biomass e-trading platform, made by Ljubinko Savić, a Senior Consultant in the Association of Energy and Coal Mining of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Serbia and Vlado Kovačević, a Research Associate at the Institute of Agricultural Economics.

This was the last activity  in a long series of activities carried out within the project "Removing Barriers to Accelerate the Development of Biomass Markets in Serbia", after which the project was closed ceremonially.