The collection of biomass deriving from different sources needs specialised workers, adequate machinery and highly efficient work organisation. In fact, if biomasses come from forest utilisations, there is a need for heavy traffic roads and adequately large working yards. Biomass provided by agricultural tree crops relies on efficient mechanisation and specific agreements with farmers.

The results of these studies have been utilized in the definition of the Action Plan of the new Regional Energy Master Plan. For carrying out all the potential biomass, it is necessary to create some regional infrastructure, centres, where gather and transform the biomass into pellets. Has been identified in 26 the number of centre necessary in the Sicily context. By mean of an investment of 16 M€ is possible to create all the centre and to sell the finished biomass with a price of 60€/t. This price looks competitive with the national price of biomass. This centres could be created nearby the centres of gathering the dry substances of wastes consequently there would be many advantages coming from the possibility of sharing personals and means. According to the strategy to put up, has been identified that in the short term there is the need to activate the potential, to share the resources with the possibility to involve the audience. Regarding the users, has been suggested an incentive to buy the biomass heating systems equal to the 25 % of the total cost. Before any application of this incentive it would be necessary to create the centre for gathering the biomass as mentioned above. By an investment of 6M€ it would be possible to create 12 centres (located where there is more potential) and with 14M€ would be possible to finance the purchase of 19000 heating system for household users. By mean of this investment there would result in a saving of 201,56 GWh a year of fossil fuels and a save of 0.06 Mt of CO2 emissions. In the long term it could be possible to activate all the potential of agricultural biomasses, with an investment of 7 M€ is possible to create all the previewed centres and with 21 M€ to finance the purchase of 31000 heating system. Consequently would be produced a saving of 331,14 GWh a year and a reduction of 0,10 millions of tons of CO2 emissions.

Regarding the forest biomasses all the potential that could be activated is concentrate in two regional parks the first is “Parco dei Nebrodi” and the second is Parco dell’ Etna. In the short time is possible to activate all the potential by mean of an investment of 3M€ for create the centre of gathering the biomass in those parks. Even in this case has been considered to introduce an incentive for the purchase of the household heating systems. The total investment is of 4,5M€ and it would produce a saving 26,74 GWh of fossil fuels and reduce the emission of 8ktCO2.

To improve SRF it would be important to set all the investments into other planning system like territorial plan or rural plan in the way to not scatter the resources. By an investment of 15M€, in the long term, would be possible to plant 5000 ha of SRF with a saving of 42,32 GWh/y of fossil fuels and 0.048 Mt of CO2 emissions avoided. In the long period, will be also, possible to use the biomasses for hydrogen production by reforming or gasification technologies. Has been assessed that each ton of wood biomass can produce 60 Kg of H2 by gasification and the same weight can be produced by 200 kg of ethanol. The hydrogen could be used into projects of public transports or for micro generations in fuel cells.

All the actions are summarized into the following table where all the potential achievable in the time are presented. In the table are also presented the costs of the avoided emissions and of the saved energy.