The verification body, the Institute of Technology and Life Sciences (Instytut Technologiczno-Przyrodniczy, ITP), is a research and education centre based in Falenty, near Warsaw. It is focused on agronomy, water management, materials engineering and renewable energy. It is one of two Polish institutes accredited under the EU ETV scheme.
ETV is the independent assessment of claims made about the performance of an environmental technology. Verifications are based on rigorous scientific testing and can be used by companies that produce environmental technologies to demonstrate that their products really do what they claim to do. Verifications under the EU ETV scheme are issued by accredited organisations in the member states, with oversight from the European Commission. The EU ETV scheme is voluntary, and so far technology developers have made 44 applications for verification.
In addition to the Polish bodies, four British institutions have been accredited as ETV Verification Bodies, along with two from each of France and Italy, and one from each of the Czech Republic, Denmark and Finland. The EU ETV scheme covers technologies that deal with energy, waste and water.
The “Biomasser” briquette compressor verified by ITP deals with energy and waste. It has been manufactured since 2005 by Poznan-based AZKET, with about 1400 units sold. It can be fed with waste straw, hay and similar materials with a moisture content of up to 30%. This is heated and compressed into biomass briquettes which can almost compete with coal as an energy source – 1.25 tonnes of briquettes is equivalent to 1 tonne of coal. Once briquettes have been burned, the resulting ash can be used as a natural fertiliser. The briquettes produce far less ash than coal.
The benefits of the technology are that it uses renewable agricultural wastes, that the raw material does not need energy-intensive drying before it goes into the compressor and that the output is a natural fuel that can substitute for fossil fuel. The compressor itself has low energy consumption of about 70 kWh per tonne of briquettes. The company behind the Biomasser says that verification will help it to sell units outside Europe and to raise financing.
ITP has several other verifications in the pipeline in follow up the Biomasser verification. Among these are technologies from Germany, which so far has no accredited verifier under the EU ETV scheme.
Further information:
EU ETV: http://iet.jrc.ec.europa.eu/etv/
Previous EcoAP article about ETV: http://ec.europa.eu/environment/ecoap/about-eco-innovation/policies-matters/eu/20130326-environmental-technology-verification_en.htm
Institute of Technology and Life Sciences: http://www.itp.edu.pl/
ASKET: http://en.asket.pl/index.php