AUSTRIAN BIOENERGY CENTRE is a research centre, which is working on projects dealing with thermal utilization of solid biomass within the frame of Austrian´s Kplus programme.
Austrian government agreed to start up and to operation of this centre in January 2002, the needed legal structure was established by entering into local register of companies as a company with limited liability in February 2003.

Shareholders:
Republic of Austria, represented by BLT Wieselburg
Technical University of Graz
BIOS-BIOENERGIESYSTEME GmbH
JOANNEUM RESEARCH Forschungsges.mbH
Technical University of Vienna


Most important purposes of the company:
o Scientific research, industrial research and pre-competitive development
o Improvement of interdisciplinary cooperation between economy and science

Main location of the company is Graz, a subsidiary is situated in Wieselburg in Lower Austria.
More than 40, mostly Austrian firms and 12 international scientific institutions are involved as partners and there will be available an overall budget of 12,3 Mio.€ in the first period of public support (2002-2006).
35 employees (highest level of qualification) will be engaged to work on more than 20 R&D-projects.

Three years prolongation of funding is foreseen, if the company can prove positive results on its R&D project work in the first period as well as a certain development of the so-called Non-Kplus-area, which means the development of a business area without financial support of Kplus-programme.

After seven years the company should have got that national and international reputation, which is essential for a competitive R&D enterprise on free market.

Former assumption is, at least the most important effect of Kplus-programme and the declared target of Austrian Bioenergy Centre GmbH!


Actual Research Programme

As mentioned, the business of AUSTRIAN BIOENERGY CENTRE GmbH
consists of Research and pre-competitive Development in the field of thermal utilization of solid biomass.

The scope of activities preliminary is splitted up into three areas, which are adjusted to different economic target groups, with their specific technology-needs.

1.) Area „Combustion of Solid Biomass“
This department is engaged in the thematic to convert heat content of biomass to heat and/or power by using optimized combustion processes.
Scientific investigations range over theoretical and practical tasks for increasing knowledge about biomass properties, combustion technologies and emissions.
Economic target group are manufacturers of furnaces and boilers, in the capacity range from few kilowatt up to ten megawatt.

2.) Area „Gasification of Solid Biomass, Gas-Cleaning and Gas-Utilization“
This is another possibility for thermal conversion of biomass.
Different technologies are used to produce a gaseous type of transportable energy.
The demand for investigation is very high in this sector, specially gas-cleaning and utilization of produced gas need a lot of additional scientific work.
Furthermore, goals of this area will be the refinement of produced gas (bio-fuel) and alternative processes for power generation.
Involved economic groups are power industry and manufacturers of power plants.

3.) Area „Modelling and Simulation“
„Take your experience and your observations and find exact theoretical correlations“, this sentence simply may describe the work of this area.
In close cooperation with software engineering companies, the main thermo- and hydrodynamic processes of area “Combustion” and area “Gasification” will be interpreted, to get solid base for future design.


Short Description:
AUSTRIAN BIOENERGY CENTRE is a research centre, which is working on projects dealing with thermal utilization of solid biomass within the frame of Austrian´s Kplus programme.
More than 40, mostly Austrian firms and 12 international scientific institutions are involved as partners and there will be available an overall budget of 12,3 Mio.€ in the first period of public support (2002-2006).
35 employees (highest level of qualification) will be engaged to work on more than 20 R&D-projects.

Actual Research Programme
The scope of activities preliminary is splitted up into three areas, which are adjusted to different economic target groups, with their specific technology-and RTD-needs:
Area „Combustion of Solid Biomass: small, middle-sized and large utilities“
Area „Gasification of Solid Biomass, Gas-Cleaning and Gas-Utilization“
Area „Modelling and Simulation“