Spanish and European companies, wineries and rural development agents met on February 27 in Vilafranca del Penedès for demonstration days of the European project Agrobioheat, which promotes the efficient use of agrobiomass for energy
Manolis Karampinis, researcher at Center for Research and Technology Hellas and project coordinator Agrobioheat, offered data on the enormous potential of vine shoots as biofuel in the European continent and showcased success stories from across Europe.
Vilafranca was chosen as the venue for the conference because it is a European benchmark in the energy valorization of vine shoots, which began with the project VinyesxCalor and whose model can be replicated elsewhere.
How Vilafranca harnesses the energy of vine shoots
The town council uses the pruning waste from the vineyards, from which the renowned Penedès wine is obtained, to fuel a biomass boiler that supplies the municipal heat network in the district of “La Girada” since 2018.
The Heizomat 500 kW biomass boiler It is designed as standard to use various biofuels and only requires adjusting its operation to the specific agrobiomass, as explained by Albert Casas, a technician at the ISVED installation company. Emissions are within current legal limits.
Jordi Cuyàs, promoter of the VinyesxCalor shelter and advisor to the Municipal Company of Aigües de Vilafranca, in charge of managing the network, explains that the company “"It transforms into useful heat for the citizens a product that was previously thrown away at a price lower than that of gas.".
The wine cooperative “The Pomegranate” It offers associated farmers the service of collecting vineyard prunings at a lower cost than doing it individually.
They employ a tractor-collector-shredder It lifts the vine shoots arranged in lines without dragging stones or sand. It shreds them as it moves and at the end unloads them into a truck.
According to Laura Carbó, environmental technician for the Vilafranca city council, The region has enormous potential., with a vine shoot production that ranges between 600 and 800 kg/Ha.
The participants also visited the Familia Torres wineries, which have a 2.6 MW steam boiler that uses vine shoots and forest biomass to produce, above all, process cold.
The day and demonstration visits were organized by the partners of the AgroBioHeat project AVEBIOM – Spanish Association of Biomass and Center for Research and Technology Hellas, with the collaboration of Vilafranca del Penedès town hall and the support of the Torres family and the Biomass Cluster of Catalonia.
The European project Agrobioheat is funded through the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under Grant Agreement No. 818369. It is represented in Spain by AVEBIOM and CIRCE Foundation