Characterisation of Feedstocks - D8 Technical Briefing Approach to Contract Amendment 1

The primary objective of this Project was to provide an understanding of UK produced biomass properties, how these vary and what causes this variability. This deliverable is provided under the second phase (2016/17) of the Characterisation of Feedstocks Project. This report is a summary of the findings from the whole project, it complements the Final Reports from the first and second phases (D6 and D12) and is supported by the Excel dataset (D11). Some key findings from the report are:inclusion of leaves in biomass should be avoided. An exclusion might be conifer tops where the levels of most elements were sufficiently low to not exceed quality thresholds;harvesting time had a marked effect;while there were species differences between SRC willow varieties, no variety combined the best ranking in all parameters across all sites;there were major changesto Miscanthus quality during storage (decreasing fuel quality);for growers of Miscanthus, poplar SRF and spruce SRF, the key influences on many properties, i.e. season and storage, can be manipulated;SRC willow growers have a reasonable degree of control over some of the important feedstock characteristics by their choice of variety;for poplar SRF and spruce SRF, many properties can be adjusted by choice of plant part to market, and harvest timefeedstock properties were relatively insensitive to the way spruce SRF as grown.