The technology mission toured bio-heat, power and pellet facilities in Austria and Northern Italy that are excellent models for bioenergy in North America. Butler-Consultants saw modern technologies in action, learned how the project economics work, and discovered how many jobs were created in the community while producing renewable energy. This was a unique opportunity.

The program included information session on costs, economics, and job creation of bioenergy options. We toured Austrian and Italian facilities of the utmost relevance to North American bioenergy stakeholders, including:

• The town of Güssing, a revitalized renewable energy boomtown, where we will see an 8MW thermal gasification plant (4.5MWth-2MWe), and several district heating plants of various sizes;

• A manufacturer of thermal and CHP plants;

• An integrated 20 MW heat-power plant and 80,000 tonne pellet plant;

• An energy service company; planning, financing, contracting;

• Small and large district heating plants.

• Various Turboden-Unicomfort installations,

• The Turboden-Uniconfort Wood-Energy Centre;

• An integrated co-generation plant – 200 kW/h electricity, 1MW heat, with production of 32,000 tons of pellets;

• A 10 MW co-gen district heating plant with Turboden Organic Rankin Cycle turbine;

• Turboden assembly plant specializing in small economic power systems;

• The Edilkamin plant - manufacturer of wood pellet residential stoves.