Assessment of the availability of agricultural crop residues in the European Union: potential and limitations for bioenergy use

This paper provides a resource-based assessment of the available agricultural crop residues for bioenergy production in the European Union, at the level of the 27 Member States. The assessment provides the amount of the residues produced, collected, their present uses and the residues left available for bioenergy. This study considers the crop production and yields and multi-annual yield variation for each crop. The calculation was based on specific residues to product ratios, which were determined, depending on the crop type and crop yield. Sustainable removal rates were considered in order to protect soil fertility. The results show large spatial and temporal variations of available crop residues within EU27. The average amount of crop residues available for bioenergy in EU27 was estimated at 1530 PJ/year, with a variation between 1090 and 1900 PJ/year. The average value represents about 3.2% in final energy consumption in the EU27 while the variation 2.3-4%. This variation, which is even larger at the level of Member States, may result in shortages in biomass supply in some years, when crop residues are available in a lower amount than the average.