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Coverage

Slovenia 2004

Project time

July 2003 – June 2004

Objectives/scope

Assisting the Slovenian Forest Service (SFS) in strengthening wood energy planning and policy formulation and in developing an adequate spatial and statistical information base

Institutional settings

Project “Supply and Utilization of Bioenergy to Promote Sustainable Forest Management” (TCP/SVN/2901), executed by the Government of Slovenia with FAO financial and technical assistance. The Slovenia Forest Service was Leading Institution, with support fron Slovenia Forestry Institute.

Scale/resolution

Analysis carried out at level of Cadastral Communities, Kadstral Obcina (KO). [2697 KO; 150 Counties and 14 Forest Regions]

Demand features

Residential sector: surface of dwelling heated by woodfuels; energy requirement for heating, and cooking; conversion efficiency parameters; Industrial sector: data on district heating, CHP Plants and other wood-consuming industries.

Supply features

Forests : rich data from 65,000 forest compartments including quality ranking, assortments and species of growing stock and increment; allowable cut and actual extraction, etc..; forest cover change rates, ownership data, etc., all at KO level.
Non-Forest area : stock and productivity of woody biomass was assessed through an ad-hoc systematic sample survey of Trees Outside Forest based on land cover map, interpretation of ortho-photo coverage and field observation.

Integration features

KO-level supply/demand balance maps considering current woodfuel demand and several supply scenarios based on: allowable cut vs actual extraction; assortment of preferred fuel species vs all non-timber assortments of all species. (Figures __)

Woodshed/bio-shed analysis

Not implemented

Integration with other aspects

Priority zoning for the identification/ranking of the areas of the country most suitable for the implementation of field programmes oriented to: (i) the promotion of forest owners associations, (ii) the increase of woodfuel production and (iii) the execution of thinning in overstocked forests and, consequently, the amelioration of future timber quality. These priority areas were determined through the combination of three aspects such as high property fragmentation, high wood surplus considering current local consumption and potential sustainable productivity, and high fraction of forests at thinning stage (early and late pole stages). See Figure 14 in Section “Integration of socio-economic aspects/issues” of main text.

Findings/conclusions

The WISDOM-based Slovenia Wood Energy Information System provides unprecedented knowledge on woody energy in Slovenia, revealing a wide resource margin for bioenergy development.
Approximately 1.9 million m3 of wood are used as an energy source, of which 1.3 mm3 by the household sector 0.6 mm3 by the industrial sector, including biomass plants. Two fairly independent woodfuel circuits coexist: one household circuit that use mainly fuelwood from forests and farmlands (and marginally charcoal) and one industrial circuit that use mainly residues from wood and pulp and paper industries.

Publications

Drigo R. and Ž. Veselic. 2006. Woodfuel Integrated Supply / Demand Overview Mapping (WISDOM) - Slovenia - Spatial woodfuel production and consumption analysis. FAO Forestry Department – Wood Energy Working Paper.