Forest resource information and real-time order-supply service are significant in wood fuel procurement. Section 1 defines the data sources of solid wood fuel procurement for regional power plants and their material supply chain. Section 2 presents an architecture for the order-supply process of wood fuel, and Section 3 creates an application for managing the supply chain and reporting. The system creates and uses data from different sources: a forest resource information system, wood material webstores, and enterprise resource planning (ERP). The data model, which follows the entity-attribute-value approach, is based on the annual processes of wood fuel procurement. These include wood fuel procurement planning in plants, processing of wood materials, ordering of wood fuel, and reporting. There is the view of the characteristics of PC and mobile services used by the enterprises of solid wood fuels. Reporting includes real-time information for suppliers, effectiveness of transportation and megawatt production, and spatial marking of forest nature reserves and carbon sinks.
Top1. Introduction
Monitoring and estimating forest biomass resources, their supply and usage in power plants are the key elements in energy production from wood. Their significance has increased as the use of wood fuel in producing renewable energy for societies has grown. EU’s climate and energy targets for the year 2020 include that of all the energy used 20% should originate from renewable resources (European Parliament and Council 2009). In many countries forest biomass has an important role in achieving this target (Europolitics, 2012; Hakkila, 2006; Routa et al., 2013; Röser, 2011; Wolfsmayr, 2013).
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change IPCC has found sustainable bioenergy to be a key method for reaching the balance (2014). On average, wood-based energy accounts for about 65% of sustainable energy in Europe. The use of wood-based and other bioenergy continues to increase in the EU – in addition to other renewable energy. (Chun Sheng Goh et.al., 2012) The EU now pays attention especially to the sustainable use of bioenergy and its emissions in proportion to the carbon sink balance. (The European Commission’s consultation on the bioenergy policy ended on 10 May 2016.) European Parliament decided on 13 September 2017, that felling of timber is accepted, if the carbon sink balance will be remained or will be better. (lulucf presentation, “Legislative train schedule”)
Efficient order-supply process is crucial for power plants using wood chips (Kanzian et al., 2013; Shabani et al., 2013). An important factor in this is the management of information. Supply chain and usage of wood fuel become more effective with real time information of its heating value and timely pick-ups of energy wood piles: the efficiency of the incineration process increases and the transportations become more profitable when haulages of wood material with high moisture content are avoided (Acuna, 2012; Röser, 2011). Managing information about available solid wood fuel resources, their accessibility and quality, processing of fuel and its incineration is also required.
Advanced measuring technology, different web-based services and geographic positioning systems provide plenty of valuable data for the procurement process (Hultnäs et al., 2012; Ranta, 2005; Zambelli et al., 2012). However, the utilization of this data and its processing into useful form of information is often not very effective, especially among regional power plants.
In the previous studies there have been several approaches in the field of forest biomass resource management. The following perspectives have been proposed in the literature: