In common with other resource assessments, the potential for energy crops is, in theory, large. It is also highly dependent on which crops are deemed to be most likely to be grown, what type of land is converted to their cultivation, and the areas of land used.

The estimations were based on two reasonably scenarios [5]:

a. 10% of land currently used for grazing/pasture plus 5% of fallow land are used to grow perennial grasses, and

b. 10% of land currently used for grazing/pasture plus 25% of fallow land are used to grow perennial grasses.

Total available land is 95.791 ha and 147.118 ha under scenarios A and B, respectively. 72% of the available land is found in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Then the potential of energy crop i in the region j was calculated according to the following equation [5]:

Enercropi, j=Aencrj CYi BYi Hi Aencrj available land in region j [ha],

CYi country specific yield of crop i [t/ha],

BYi biofuel yield of crop i [t biofuel/ t crop],

Hi biofuel energy content of crop i [GJ/t].

Table 2 presents the energy crops considered in the two scenarios for Bosnia and Herzegovina, main energy markets and the energy potentials under the two scenarios.

The calculations are made for the whole land available in each case, e. g. if all the available land in Scenario A was used for biodiesel production with oilseeds the total potential would amount to 2,12 PJ, while if it was used for second generation bioethanol from Short Rotation Coppice (SRC) it would reach 6,21 PJ. These figures summarize potentials based on conversion efficiencies. In all cases the potential in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina makes 72% of the total potential.

The respective Technical Potentials are estimated to be 15,33PJ and 23,54 PJ resource. The half of the resource would support local small scale energy crop fired baled fired boilers or energy crop pellet boilers supplying residential properties with heat. This would equate to 1.703 GWh of useful heat production per year.