Heating with straw An analysis of regional economic and ecological effects of straw fired-heating plants

With this project, the IÖW aims to show which regional economic effects might be associated with the production, installation and operation of straw-fired heating plants, i.e. to what extent regional value added and employment effects relating to this technology can be expected, especially in rural areas.

Furthermore, environmental impacts that are associated with the operation of straw-fired heating plants will be shown, for example in which way this technology contributes to the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions and further ecological problems like eutrophication and acidification. The required data for the analysis of regional economic and ecological effects will be derived from interviews of plant manufacturers, planners and operators of straw fired heating plants. Regional economic effects will be calculated with a model developed by the IÖW (WEBEE-Modell); the ecological assessment will take place using the software SimaPro. Afterwards, the economic and ecological effects will be calculated for three notional example cases.