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The European FP7 project SECTOR (Production of Solid Sustainable Energy Carriers from Biomass by Means of Torrefaction) has successfully ended in December 2015 after 4 years of research and was one of the major activities to shorten the time to market for torrefaction technologies.

The Production of Solid Sustainable Energy Carriers from Biomass by Means of Torrefaction - SECTOR -

Within SECTOR, 21 partners from 9 European countries are working jointly together to advance the state of the art of torrefaction as one of the major technologies to achieve the EU renewable energy targets.

The SECTOR project is funded by the European Union through the 7^th Framework Programme.

Boosting Torrefaction as a major renewable energy process

SECTOR (Production of Solid Sustainable Energy Carriers from Biomass by Means of TORrefaction) is a large-scale European project with a strong consortium of 21 partners from industry and science. The project is focused on the further development of torrefaction-based technologies for the production of solid bioenergy carriers up to pilot-plant scale and beyond, and on supporting the market introduction of torrefaction-based bioenergy carriers as a commodity renewable solid fuel.

In parallel to the development of torrefaction and densification technologies the consortium will work on the assessment of selected logistics aspects and the use of torrefied products in existing conversion options as well as fuel specification and testing methods. This is complemented by a full sustainability assessment of torrefaction-based biomass-to-end-use value chains. The partners CENER (Spain), DTI (Denmark), ECN (Netherlands), Topell (Netherlands) and Umeå University (Sweden) provide the knowhow and equipment for the core technologies of torrefaction and densification. Industry partners such as EON (UK), RWE Innogy (Germany) and Vattenfall (Sweden), amongst others, will concentrate on logistics and end use applications. The scientific organisations, like ofi (Austria), TFZ (Germany) and VTT (Finland), bring in their expertise in terms of analysis and testing methodologies as well as standardisation.

In this way, the SECTOR project is expected to shorten the time-to-market of torrefaction technology and to promote market introduction within stringent sustainability boundary conditions. The European Union provides funding for this project within the Seventh Framework Programme. The project started in January 2012 and has a duration of 42 months.

SECTOR Objectives

• Support the market introduction of torrefaction-based bioenergy carriers as a commodity renewable solid fuel
• Further development of torrefaction-based technologies (up to pilot-plant scale and beyond)
• Development of specific production recipes, validated through extensive lab-to-industrial-scale logistics and end-use performance testing
• Development and standardisation of dedicated analysis and testing methods for assessment of transport, storage, handling logistics and end-use performance
• Assessment of the role of torrefaction-based solid bioenergy carriers in the bioenergy value chains and their contribution to the development of the bioenergy market in Europe
• Full sustainability assessment of the major torrefaction-based biomass-to-end-use value chains
• Dissemination of project results to industry and into international forums (e.g. EIBI, EERA, CEN/ISO, IEA and sustainability round tables)

Overview of the SECTOR project