Quality management for biomass heating plants

The klimaaktiv programme for improving the quality and boosting the efficiency of biomass heating plants and local heat grids.

Bioenergy is the trailblazer for energy transition in Austria. klimaaktiv, the BMLFUW climate-protection initiative, fosters the quality improvement and efficiency boost of biomass heating plants and local heat grids. The objective is to have accompanying quality control in the planning, building and operation of heating plants.

Uniform and clearly-defined quality criteria as well as standardised requirements for the planning and building of biomass heating plants and local heat grids lead to a considerable quality improvement and thus to higher efficiency of such plants. Since 2006, the quality management system has been mandatory for all heating plant projects applying for funding in the framework of company-level environmental promotion in Austria.

The track record of the quality campaign is astounding: The efficiency of new wood-fired heating plants has improved by more than 10%, and heat density has even increased by 30% on average. Until now, 62 planners were trained to become quality officers for heating plants and provide their services as independent experts. More than 1,250 projects were already accompanied by the quality officers and systematically recorded in the monitoring database.

New plants built in Austria currently stand out due to high operational safety and service life of systems engineering. When compared to existing plants, the emissions from new plants were reduced.

More renewable energy sources that are used efficiently and in the right place – this is the klimaaktiv formula for climate protection based on renewables.