Problems with peat-electricity stem from terminology

Full text: At the Conference here we have been talking about peat, bio fuel, co-generation of heat and electricity, bioelectricity, the obligation to buy electricity generated from renewable energy resources according to preferential tariffs etc. Sangla Peat Ltd. is an enterprise where these issues are dealt with daily. Still we are unable to sell the peat-produced electricity to Estonian Energy according to preferential tariffs as fixed in the Energy Act (Energiaseadus, 1999), because peat is not listed among the favoured sources of energy. Therefore Sangla Peat Ltd. is enforced to sell its electricity surplus to the national electric network at very low price and only because of lawmakers' contradictory interpretations of fuels. This mess in terminology should be tackled seriously. In The National Long Term Energy Development Programme peat is sometimes treated as a renewable energy source. In the same document peat and even biofuels are not considered as renewable energy sources (however, Energy Act does not include this term). Yet the document emphasizes the preference of heat and electricity cogeneration and states renewable energy sources utilization to be the strategic Estonian energetics objective. The usage of peat is planned to be increasing in heat and electricity co-generation stations. Within cooperation between the department of energetics of the Estonian Ministry of Economic Affairs and Estonian Bio fuel Association the process has already started to diminish contradictions in fuel terminology and in the laws concerning energetics. Also 'Eesti Turvas' (Estonian Peat) magazine has thoroughly treated this subject in its fall 1999 issue (Veski, 1999). On behalf of Sangla Peat Ltd. I hope our authorities of energetics and economy will clear up the the contradictions between Energy Act and The National Long Term Energy Development Programme soon. With the help of laws we need a clear answer to the question: is electric energy, generated in Estonian heat and electricity co-generation stations, from milling peat and its scraps, produced from biomass, bio fuel or from a renewable energy source etc. and is Estonia really interested in such energy. If, according to laws, peat is not considered as a bio fuel, then, unfortunately, our peat energetics destiny is to diverge from the way of bio fuel energetics