Project BYE/03/G31 "Biomass Energy for Heating and Hot Water Supply in Belarus" has been developed with active involvement of the Committee on Energy Efficiency under the Council of Ministers of Belarus, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) which initiated the project. The project was registered in the international technical assistance project database maintained by the Ministry of Economy of Belarus on July 29, 2003, registration № 2/03/000119.

This project is the first full project funded by the Global Environment Facility (GEF). The total GEF investment will constitute over USD 3 million.

The project was launched in September 2003 and has a four-year duration period. The implementing agency is the Committee on Energy Efficiency under the Council of Ministers of Belarus.

The project manager is Vladimir Nikolaevich Voitekhovich, Ph.D., who has been selected competitively.

The project is highly relevant for Belarus, a country with few traditional energy resources (natural gas, oil, coal) and therefore highly dependent on imports. The most important natural resource of Belarus are the forests, which cover 36% of the country.

The annual increase in wood resources is 25 million compressed cubic meters. Logging takes place reaching 10 million cubic meters per year and is increasing from year to year.

Given increasing harvesting of wood in the country, the amount of wood-waste resulting from wood logging and processing will also increase. In that regard, it is critical to use the currently unused wood-waste as fuel to replace imported natural gas and heavy oil. This is primarily waste from wood harvesting and unused processing waste. Approximately 6 million cubic meters of wood-waste could be used as fuel, experts estimate.

Approximately 2,000 boiler houses sized from 0,5 to 10MW and fired by fossil fuel are suitable for conversion to wood biomass.

Let it be noted that the Project "Biomass Energy for Heating and Hot Water Supply in Belarus" completely rules out the possibility of using wood from Chernobyl-affected areas for the purposes of the project.

All project's demonstration sites lie remote from contaminated areas which can be clearly seen on the available map.

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