BIORAISE is a computer GIS based public tool developed by CIEMAT and specifically designed to give information about available biomass resources and their costs around selected locations. The first version of the tool was developed in the framework of the CHRISGAS FP6 project, which was commissioned in September 2009 and whose scope was the assessment of forest and agricultural residual biomass resources existing in the Mediterranean countries: Spain, Portugal, France, Italy and Greece. In January 2012 a new version was launched. This new version has incorporated new features and types of biomass, namely agro industry and timber resources, in the SUDOE area (Spain, South of France and Portugal). This work has been developed in the framework of a new EU interreg SUDOE IV project called BIOMASUD.
An accurate database of available sustainable biomass in Southern Europe
The leading principle governing the architecture of BIORAISE is the geo-referencing of data. For this purpose, a common European database (Corine Land Cover) has been used as topological background. Forestry data were obtained from the National Forest Inventories and agricultural data from the EUROSTAT Regional Statistics utility. In the calculations of biomass resources given by BIORAISE, environmental, economic and other technical and market restrictions are taken into account, thus the figures offered correspond to available biomass resources under sustainable conditions.
The tool is operated by a web viewer interface which displays the geographic environment of the included countries as well as their background basic elements. The current background cartography was obtained from the free server OpenStreetMap. The viewed elements change depending on the dynamic zoom level applied by the user. A box is available in the “Cartography” tile to enable the visualization of the location of different SUDOE stakeholders such as producers of wood and agro industrial by-products, and other biomass market players of the SUDOE area.
BIORAISE main features
As a calculation tool, the application can query by a circle from 1 to 100 km radius around the previously selected site, or alternatively, by province or municipality polygons. The requested site can be defined in the application by clicking on it on a displayed map or by introducing its geographical co-ordinates.
When a query is launched, the application shows a window with two tabs: one allows to assess the resources and collection costs of agricultural and forest field biomass in the whole five countries, and the other can perform the same function for the agro industrial biomass by-products in the SUDOE region.
BIORAISE allows to calculate the resources in tons of dry matter per year (o.d.t./year) and their average collection costs in Euro per o.d.t. . By entering the most probable moisture values of the different types of biomass, the energy content in GJ/year (Net Calorific Value) and the average reference value of ash content dry mater are also calculated.
BIORAISE allows to calculate the biomass transport cost from the selected circle or polygon to the chosen delivery site. For this purpose, the fuel price (diesel) must be introduced in the cell “Fuel price” and then the “Issue transport cost” button must be clicked. The tool then provides an estimate of the average transport cost by road for each biomass category.
New powerful features available by 2014
BIORAISE is today a powerful tool for the assesment of sustainable biomass resources in the southern EU countries and it is the purpose of CIEMAT to improve it by incorporating new facilities and resources, as well as to extend it, whenever posssible, to new EU countries.
Currently, CIEMAT is working on a new version of the application that will include a traceability system for solid biofuel produced under the BIOMASUD quality and sustainability certification system. This is a recently created quality label for the solid biofuels marketed in SUDOE region, as well as in other southern EU countries. Certified biofuel producers and traders within the cited quality label umbrella will be able to introduce characteristics of their biofuels into BIORAISE; this will allow users to know the product origin, quality, greenhouse gases emissions and other fuel aspects. The application will also be improved by changing the background maps to actualized Google Maps. It is expected this new version will be available since January 2014.
On the other hand, CIEMAT is preparing a new calculation and visualization tool for energy crops that will be implemented in the BIORAISE web environment and it can be used to perform assessments of potential productions and costs of several energy crops in Spain. This tool is expected to be available by April 2014. The database for this tool is being prepared in the framework of the DECOCEL national project, supported by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiviness and the European Regional Development Funds.
This post was written by Luis. S. Esteban, Pilar Ciria, J.E. Carrasco – CIEMAT (Centro de Investigaciones Energéticas, Medioambientales y Tecnológicas, SPAIN
