Garden waste heats the sports hall

Small combined power and heat systems which can be fed with garden waste, straw or rice husks seem like a good solution to the current search for alternative energy sources.

The village school and sports hall in the small Italian village of Castel d'Adriano is today supplied with energy from a system developed and produced by the Danish company Stirling DK. All fuel for the system comes from a local farmer in the form of branches and sticks, which he has trimmed from his windbreaks.

Before the system was set up, the school and hall, like the majority of all other villages in Italy, obtained their energy from gas. The gas was imported from Russia and Libya, and was transported to the village by lorry.

Watch a film about Stirling Denmark

Ten customers — more in the pipeline
The school and hall in Castel d'Adriano are one of the first ten customers of Stirling DK to have a system on a trial basis. There is, however, much to indicate that the number is likely to increase significantly within a short space of time. Stirling DK hopes to have sorted out the technological teething problems it is still battling with within the next couple of years – and then the systems can be mass produced and marketed as a standard product.
Stirling DK has planned to achieve break-even by the end of 2010, when it will enter a phase of aggressive growth. The company hopes that by 2014 its turnover will be around EUR 135 million.

Stirling DK's combined heat and power installation is CO₂-neutral and runs on biomass in the form of e.g. wood chips, straw, coconut shells or rice husks. The installations are sold with capacities that can supply 10-500 average-sized western households with heat and electricity.

Stirling DK holds a unique position on the world market with its product. The only technology that comes anywhere close is the diesel generator, which is both pollutive and expensive to run.

Political tailwind
Considering political declarations of intent throughout the world, the future looks bright for Stirling DK. The EU is, for example, committed to reducing its CO₂ emissions by 20 per cent by 2020 (this goal could be increased to 30 per cent after the Copenhagen climate summit in December 2009).

In Asia, the Indian government has vowed that 100,000 villages will have access to electricity within the next ten years. Several nations and companies are keen to do something about the fact that 1.6 billion people do not have access to electricity.