Can you let us know if there is a working committee we can liase or work with in order to get the underlying structure to the announced Tarif. I see a number of issues which need to be clarified in order to stimulate growth in this sector.
1. The farmer needs to know how much per ton he will get (guaranteed minimum) for harvested miscanthus. Without this information the farmer has no way of completing a business case for committing his land to this crop for 20 years.
2. As miscanthus is harvested in late winter it means that every farmer will be selling at the same time, and the rule of supply and demand will dictate that the buy price will be reduced (due to glut at that time), or the farmer will need to incur storage costs and hold till the power stations are in dire need for the fuel. It also needs to be remembered that the co-gen stations are only capable of burning a mix or traditional fuel with miscantus,willow, woodchip etc.
3. In order to ensure that their is proper competition between traditional source fuels for power stations, we need some way for Ireland inc. to be in a position to charge the stations for the peat (per tonne) they burn + the carbon cost for the emissions.
4. Irelnad inc. needs to get cracking on this programme because it takes up to 3 years to establish the crop and get yields up to a point where they are attractive to grower and pewer station.
Eamonn Mc keon
Posted on 2 Jun 2010 9:32 pm
Can you let us know if there is a working committee we can liase or work with in order to get the underlying structure to the announced Tarif. I see a number of issues which need to be clarified in order to stimulate growth in this sector.
1. The farmer needs to know how much per ton he will get (guaranteed minimum) for harvested miscanthus. Without this information the farmer has no way of completing a business case for committing his land to this crop for 20 years.
2. As miscanthus is harvested in late winter it means that every farmer will be selling at the same time, and the rule of supply and demand will dictate that the buy price will be reduced (due to glut at that time), or the farmer will need to incur storage costs and hold till the power stations are in dire need for the fuel. It also needs to be remembered that the co-gen stations are only capable of burning a mix or traditional fuel with miscantus,willow, woodchip etc.
3. In order to ensure that their is proper competition between traditional source fuels for power stations, we need some way for Ireland inc. to be in a position to charge the stations for the peat (per tonne) they burn + the carbon cost for the emissions.
4. Irelnad inc. needs to get cracking on this programme because it takes up to 3 years to establish the crop and get yields up to a point where they are attractive to grower and pewer station.