Les objectifs que s'est fixée la France pour le développement des bioénergies nécessitent de mobiliser de nouveaux gisements de biomasse. Pour ceux d'origine forestière, la forêt de montagne, avec 25 % des surfaces en France, est un réservoir potentiel so

The global area of specific cultures for forest biomass (short rotation coppices, very short rotation coppices and semi-dedicated stands) is strongly increasing because energy companies, agricultural and forestry cooperatives, pulp companies have been setting up new plantations with over 1000 ha per year during these last years. The traditional and manual methods that prevailed until now, from the production of plants in nursery to the biomass harvest, is no longer possible: the costs are too high (especially for planting and harvesting), current techniques are not adapted to high planting density (density of 2 to 10 times greater than conventional forest plantations), furthermore the industry is facing a lack of manual workforce. Finally, the mechanization of these operations and its integration into specific crop management seems a promising way to reduce costs and facilitate the work (ergonomic of workstations), while taking into account the environment preservation (soil, stand ...). The international state of the art and the field trials carried out by forestry cooperatives or FCBA highlight the inadequacy of most existing machines, mainly foreign, whether for planting, weeding and harvesting. Therefore MECABIOFOR aims to create innovative tools to foster the development of lignocellulosic biomass crops (SRC, VSRC, semi-dedicated plantations) by ensuring their economic viability through technological innovations for planting, weeding and harvesting of these stands. The development of appropriate tools, combining both lightness, mechanical strength, accuracy and reduced cost is at each stage a technological challenge. The sum of these improvements represents a significant technological leap for strongly reducing the cost of production of forest biomass in these dedicated cultures. To meet this objective, MECABIOFOR will be carried out over a period of 36 months and includes: - Industrial partners (4 forestry cooperatives grouped under the umbrella of UCFF, Smurfit Kappa Comptoir des Pins, Tembec R & D Kraft), - A public research partner (Cemagref), specialized in research concerning mechanical engineering, - The industrial forest-based sector’s technical center (FCBA), which has over 30 years experience on dedicated and semi-dedicated biomass crops, which will involve outsourcing to an agricultural cooperative (InVivo). In addition to the tasks of project management (task 1) and communication of the results (task 5), tasks 2 and 3 are intended to remove technological barriers from planting to biomass harvest. In this purpose, close collaboration will be conducted among field practitioners, with their experiences and their technical, economic, environmental and ergonomic expectations, and scientists providing scientific expertise. Many trials of existing materials, then design and tests of new machines are planned in these tasks. An economic and environmental synthesis, through a cycle analysis (LCA), will be performed in task 4 that will include the results of the two previous tasks. This task, which involves all the project partners, will provide a global technical vision on the developed machineries and the new biomass crop managements, in order to coordinate the different stages to reach the final economic gain.

MOQAPRO’s main target is a large scale and integrated approach, from forest land to energy mills, of quantity and quality monitoring of the woodchips production chain, due to specific methods and tools development for quality measures and production management. Quality monitoring for woodchips is mainly depending on moisture measurement, at every step of the production chain. Size grading and fermentation measurement are also needed. For quantity aspects, volume and mass have to be precisely known, which is not as easy as it could seems, because of woodchips mass variations, and large scale heap characteristics. Monitoring MWh unit all over this production chain means a permanent measurement of woodchips mass and moisture. Good methods for roadside or platform storage, and quality packing, must be precisely described and estimated. Forest biomass for energy production takes various forms and is changing is characteristics during the production chain. This is why detailed information is needed from harvesting operations and logistics organizations at key steps. Using these data, a specifications document will be elaborated, and on this basis, a specific information system for woodchips storage optimization will be developed. Further, for platform storage monitoring, new methods for woodchips heap visible volume must be tested. The goal is here to adapt technologies to rough storage sites conditions, and to allow automatics and economics frequent measurement, for big scale volume. Two very innovating tools will be developed for moisture measurement. They will be a result of OMICAGE’s previous project first conclusions, due to good results of the demonstrator used in laboratory conditions for dynamic woodchips flow. The measurement principle has been registered in a deposited patent. It is based on electromagnetic waves, and is developed for moisture evaluation at woodchips crushing machine exit system. It’s now necessary to develop this technology for many woodchips types, and various worksites conditions, to get a pre industrial prototype. A second tool is needed for moisture measurement of more important woodchips volume, on static conditions. This tool will be developed with a laboratory prototype first step, using same technologic basis, but with important adaptations. A new prototype, on scale 1 will be tested on worksites conditions, especially on storage platform. In both tools, mass measurement tolls will be integrated in each prototype, allowing Mwh unit monitoring new possibilities. Before all this, and as a complement to the state of art already done, and to the proper expertise of this project partners, investigations will be led in various countries, to identify production methods, monitoring tools which could be adapted to French forest conditions. For further development of industrialization steps, contacts and partnerships will be looked for, especially with forest harvesting and crushing machines constructors. Results of this project are eagerly awaited by many actors of woodchips production chain. It is highly strategic to give innovating solutions for these monitoring aspects, especially on moisture measurement, to allow high industrial scale level of forest biomass energy production, in liable economic conditions.

La pérennité économique de la filière de production de bioénergie, et en particulier de carburants d’origine lignocellulosique, réclame de mobiliser durablement de très grands volumes de biomasse sur des territoires restreints. L’ensemble du projet est basé sur une approche unifiée entre agriculture et forêt et a pour ambition de doter les acteurs d’outils, de méthodes et de données de référence de qualité. En premier lieu, un référentiel multicritères des ressources potentielles pour la France sera créé sous forme de base de données accessible via internet. Un réseau bioénergie expérimental alliant petites parcelles et conditions de vraie grandeur sera construit du nord au sud en s’appuyant sur les réseaux existants des partenaires. Ces expérimentations permettront de modéliser la croissance en biomasse d’espèces peu documentées et d’adapter les itinéraires techniques et sylvicoles à l’utilisation énergétique. Les intrants seront limités, divers scénarios de mobilisation de la ressource seront testés via de nouveaux équipements et des organisations nouvelles et la qualité de la matière première seront analysés selon les critères d’intérêt pour la technologie visée. Les impacts environnementaux et énergétiques des techniques de production et mobilisation seront pris en compte et l’ensemble des paramètres mesurés seront exploités dans l’étude des coûts. Enfin, des outils de spatialisation et/ou quantification du gisement seront améliorés ou mis au point pour la paille, les cultures énergétiques dédiées nouvelles, les TCR et les plaquettes forestières avec l’objectif d’aboutit à des outils de cartographie applicables et permettant une approche intégrée agriculture/forêt.