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October 28, 2015

by AEA

24th European Biomass Conference and Exhibition (EUBCE) in Amsterdam

The European Biomass Conference and Exhibition (EUBCE) is a world class annual event which, since 1980, is held at different venues throughout Europe.

The EUBCE covers the entire value chain of biomass to conduct business, network, and to present and discuss the latest developments and innovations, the vision is to educate the biomass community and to accelerate growth.

The EUBCE will host a dynamic international Exhibition for companies and research labs to showcase their latest products and bringing scientists, technologists and key players together with leading Biomass industries and organizations.

Message from the Technical Programme Chairman

Dr. David Baxter
European Commission, DG JRC
Institute for Energy and Transport – IET

Dear Participant of the 24th European Biomass Conference

On behalf of the scientific and industry committee, it is a great pleasure to invite you to be part of the 24th European Biomass Conference and Exhibition (EUBCE). The conference has a great tradition extending over the last 30 years addressing topics from biomass itself, to conversion processes for biofuels, bioenergy and biorefineries, to industrial applications of research results and to political policies and impacts on the environment. Since the 22nd EUBCE we have fully integrated industry presentations into the core programme in order to showcase deployment of the very many innovative technologies that have emerged over recent years. At the 23rd EUBCE we dedicated a clear place in the programme to highlight roles for integration of biomass and bioenergy in developing energy supply infrastructures.

There is a pressing need for renewable energy growth to meet political targets for 2020 and beyond. There is an even more pressing need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions if a two degree centigrade global temperature rise above the preindustrial average is not to be exceeded. All uses of biomass need to be carefully considered. This means that biomass use must be environmentally sustainable and that genuine savings of greenhouse gas emissions are achieved when fossil-based products, energy and fuels are replaced. Most significant is that industry is able to achieve both environmental and economic sustainability when scientific discoveries are integrated into industrial concepts and deployed at commercial scale.

Growth of renewables in the energy sector, particularly of solar and wind energy, presents substantial challenges in terms of balancing energy supply with energy demand. Biomass and bioenergy are starting to play a significant role in the development of systems that can provide stable energy supply that closely matches demand. It is already obvious that individual renewable energy sectors cannot develop in isolation because each has an impact on others in the supply of energy. The 24th EUBCE in 2016 will continue to address all aspects that relate to biomass and bioenergy, not least the role of biomass in the emerging bioeconomy.

There will continue to be a strong focus on interactions between researchers, industry and policy makers for all branches of biomass, bioenergy biomaterials and biochemicals that are contributing to an emerging low carbon society. We still need to focus on how scientific innovations can be more efficiently exploited, what are the needs of the cutting edge industries leading the way with scaling up of technologies, what are the research priorities in the minds of industry and policy makers and how can environmental sustainability be maintained and simultaneously economic sustainability achieved.

The exhibition will continue to provide a platform for interaction. There will of course be plenty of opportunities for organisations, projects and consortia to hold side events (meetings, seminars and workshops) on the conference site.

The call for abstracts is open until October 30th 2015. Please have a close look at the Topics in the programme and see how you can best contribute to the closer interaction whether you are a researcher, an industry person or a policy maker working with biomass. We look forward to assembling an exciting and rewarding programme for Amsterdam in 2016.

David Baxter

Technical Programme Chairman
European Commission, Joint Research Centre, Institute for Energy and Transport

October 16, 2015

by AEA

Albanian Officials Sued for Loss-Making Energy Deal

The energy minister and state attorney are being sued over an agreement to resolve a dispute they signed with power giant CEZ which allegedly cost the state 479 million euro.

The Albanian Supreme State Audit, KLSH, said on Wednesday that it was suing energy minister Damian Gjiknuri and state attorney Alma Hicka over the agreement with CEZ, which used to administrate energy distribution in Albania and is 70 per cent owned by the Czech government.

The auditors’ report concluded that the 479 million euro loss was incurred because the energy minister and the state attorney took the decision to negotiate an amicable agreement when resolving a dispute between Albania and CEZ, instead of using international arbitration.

“The economic damage created to the Albanian state is 479 million euro: 95 million euros as fee for negotiation of the agreement; 352 million euro as financial liability coming from mismanagement of this company in 2009-2012 timeframe; 32 million euro from the depreciation of 24 per cent of state shares,” the auditors’ report said.

During a heated debate on the issue in parliament on Thursday, Gjiknuri denied the audit report’s allegation and insisted it was politically inspired.

He alleged that former Prime Minister Sali Berisha was behind the report because the head of KLSH was appointed during the time that Berisha was in office.

“That report is worth nothing, no penal charges can emerge out of it,” Gjiknuri said.

“I just wonder how it is possible that the report has similar conclusions and accusations to the ones that Berisha made a year ago when the government signed the agreement with CEZ Company,” he added.

The agreement was signed in June 2014 between the Albanian government and CEZ.

Gjiknuri has previously described it as the best that Albania could get because international arbitration with CEZ could have blocked foreign investment in the country’s energy sector.

Opposition MPs in parliament to officially called for an international investigation into the CEZ affair, but the idea was rejected by the ruling coalition.

CEZ bought 76 per cent of the shares in the Albanian energy distribution company in 2008.

In January 2013, the Albanian Energy Regulation Authority revoked CEZ’s licence, saying that the company didn’t fulfil the initial contract with Albanian state, mismanaging the distribution of energy.

In June 2014, after negotiations led by Gjiknuri, the government decided to make an amicable agreement with CEZ to resolve the dispute, although the opposition was against the move.

By Fatjona Mejdini

October 14, 2015

by AEA

Moldova Joins EU’s CESEC Gas Connectivity Initiative

Moldova has joined the high-level group of CESEC, the gas connectivity initiative of the European Commission for central-eastern and southeastern Europe.

“On 12 October, the Vice-President in charge of the Energy Union, Maros Sefcovic, witnessed the signature of the Memorandum of Understanding and its Action Plan by the Prime Minister of Moldova Valeriu Strelet”, the Commission said in a statement.

The Commission set up CESEC high-level group in February to give a boost to diversification of gas routes and supply as well as gas market integration in the region.

Work under the Central-Eastern and South-Eastern European Gas Connectivity (CESEC) initiative is focused on building new gas pipelines and making the best use of existing infrastructure.

EU members Austria, Bulgaria, Croatia, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia are part of the CESEC high-level group. Non-EU Albania, Macedonia, Serbia, Ukraine and now Moldova are also members of the group.

Moldova will start building a pipeline that will carry Romanian natural gas to its capital city of Chisinau next spring in a bid to reduce its energy dependence on Russia, a Moldovan government official said last week.

October 14, 2015

by AEA

US ‘Applying Pressure’ on Greece to Build Gas Link w/ Bulgaria

US diplomats are working in Greece to make sure the interconnector project between Athens and Sofia will be carried out, the Bulgarian National Radio has said.

“The interconnector with Bulgaria is a priority for Greece‘s energy policy as well,” BNR’s correspondent in Athens quotes Greek Energy Minister Skourletis as telling lawmakers in Parliament.

US energy envoy Amos Hochstein, who earlier this year visited Bulgaria, is in Greece on Wednesday and is set to meet Skourletis, in a trilateral meeting that is also to be attended by his Bulgarian counterpart Temenuzhka Petkova.

While visiting Bulgaria in January, US Secretary of State John Kerry asserted that the United States would put in effort to make sure the gas link project will be carried out and will be granted EU funding, for the sake of Bulgaria‘s energy diversification.

With early elections and the peak of the debt crisis in Greece this summer, alongside developments on the so-called “Turkish Stream” pipeline project, agreements on the Interconnector Greece-Bulgaria (IGB) were not signed in July as it was initially envisaged.

Bulgaria has been working for years to build interconnections with neighboring states, but the bilateral projects are either yet to begin or have come to a halt.

Once connected with Greece‘s energy system, Bulgaria will be able to receive gas from the Trans Adriatic Pipeline, which is set to carry gas from Azerbaijan via Turkey, Greece and Albania to Italy.

October 14, 2015

by AEA

Natural gas from “Shah Deniz 2” has already been distributed among 8 countries

Baku, October 14,

“Natural gas to be produced from “Shah Deniz 2″ till 2044, has already been distributed among companies from 8 countries on the basis of a contract signed for a period of 25 years”, said Deputy Energy Minister of Azerbaijan Natig Abbasov in an interview to Russia’s “news.rambler.ru” website.

Russia’s “news.rambler.ru” website distorted the words of Natig Abbasov and submitted as “Azerbaijan has already sold the gas to be produced and supplied for export till 2040”.

In response to the question “If Turkey refuses Russian gas, is it possible to compensate it with Azerbaijan gas?, the Deputy Minister answered that, natural gas to be produced from “Shah Deniz 2” till 2044, has already been distributed among companies from 8 countries on the basis of a contract signed for a period of 25 years. According to these agreements, some 16 billion cubic meters of gas have been also distributed – 10 billion cubic meters will be exported to Europe and the remaining 6 billion cubic meters – to Turkey.

Stressing that, each year, the country’s energy balance is identified considering to the electricity, oil and gas demand, increasing the number of consumers and development of industry, Abbasov said that, in addition to the future ensuring of this demand, if the gas will be produced, it may be possible to export.

The 1,850 km-length TANAP project, will pump gas from the vast Azerbaijani Shah Deniz 2 field to Turkish and European Union consumers. TANAP will run from the Turkish border with Georgia, beginning in the Turkish village of Türkgözü in the Posof district of Ardahan, will run through 21 provinces until it ends at the Greek border in the İpsala district of Edirne. The pipeline is planned to be commissioned in 2018. As it was stated earlier, some 6 billion cubic meters of gas of 16 billion cubic meters will go to Turkey, while some 10 billion cubic meters of gas will go to Europe. By 2023, TANAP’s capacity will rise to 23 bcm per year and then to 31 bcm by 2026. Initially, Turkey will buy the first 6 billion cubic meters (bcm) per year of gas from TANAP. A further 10 bcm will be delivered to Europe once it is connected to the Trans-Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) by 2020.

In 2020, TANAP line will start delivering natural gas which it will buy through the South Caucasus Pipeline by connecting Trans-Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) to Europe through Greece, Albania, and Italy.

The TANAP Project’s shareholding percentages will be as follows, after the process of acquisition of shares is completed: Southern Gas Corridor Closed Joint Stock Company (SGC) – 58 percent, BOTAS – 30 percent, and BP – 12 percent.

October 14, 2015

by AEA

Albanian PM visits the Czech Republic after the “CEZ” suspected scandal

Premiér Bohuslav Sobotka (vlevo) se seel 13. øíjna v Praze s pøedsedou albánské vlády Edi Ramou (vpravo).

Prime Minister of Albania, Edi Rama has left today for an official visit to the Czech Republic. On Tuesday, he’s expected to have a meeting with the Czech Prime Minister, Bohuslav Sobotka.

Prime Minister of Albania, Edi Rama has left today for an official visit to the Czech Republic. On Tuesday, he’s expected to have a meeting with the Czech Prime Minister, Bohuslav Sobotka.

The Czech Prime Minister’s press office says that the meeting will discuss Albania’s preparations to be accepted as a member of the European Union.

The meeting is also expected to discuss issues between the two countries and the refugee crisis.

Rama and Sobotka will also talk about the exchange of tourists between the countries.

On Tuesday afternoon, a business forum will be held and this forum will be organized by the governments of both countries under the auspices of the Ministry of Industry and Trade of Czech Republic.

In this visit, Rama will be accompanied by the minister of Economic Development and Tourism, Arben Ahmetaj, minister of Education and Sport, Lindita Nikolla and the minister of Social Affairs, Blendi Klosi.

The last visit of an Albanian PM in Prague dates back to 2012, when the government was chaired by Sali Berisha.

There’s no official information as to whether Rama and Sobotka will discuss the so called “CEZ” scandal, where hundreds of millions of euros are suspected to have been embezzled. The media and the opposition suggest that the involvement of senior state officials in this affair, including speaker of Parliament, Ilir Meta, PM Edi Rama, etc. These officials have denied all accusations.

Part of this scandal is also the assertion of a senior European official, Janez Kopac, the head of the Secretariat of the European Community of Energy, mentioned a few days ago in the Albanian parliament.

Kopac said that the withdrawal of the Albanian government from the request for 600 million euros to the state owned Czech company CEZ after its departure from Albania and the 100 million euros offered to close this case, was the condition imposed by the Czech Republic not to use its veto for Albania’s EU candidate status. The official said that an hour after the agreement was signed, the Czech government lifted the veto.