Biomass takes root in Yunquera with a plant to utilise forest residues

This will be the role of the new biomass centre that the Malaga provincial council opened on Monday in the town of Yunquera.

The facilities have involved an investment of two million euros, of which 825,500 comes from European Next Generation funds via the Biodiversity Foundation.

The site forms part of the Bio+a Málaga project and has been established as the centrepiece of an energy network that has already been rolled out across all the municipalities in the Sierra de las Nieves.

One of the key features of this new plant is its capacity. As explained by the provincial authority, this facility will be able to process around 2,600 tonnes of wood per year with a moisture content of 30 per cent. Once treated and dried, the expected output will range between 1,500 and 2,500 tonnes per year of wood chips ready for transport and use.

The process begins in the forest itself. The provincial authority has explained that the waste resulting from the clearing and maintenance work will be transported to Yunquera, where it will be weighed, sorted, dried and shredded. Wood from the national park will be stored separately from that extracted from other forest areas before moving on to the processing stage.

In fact, to organise this process, the complex has two large storage areas, each measuring around 1,500 square metres, a weighbridge to monitor the arrival and departure of lorries and a warehouse designed to store the dry wood chips until they are distributed. All of this is situated on a plot of 19,786 square metres, with a development area of over 6,500 square metres, where the centre has been built.

Meanwhile, the provincial council said that the first batch of raw material is already being dried. This consists of 562 tonnes of timber harvested last year from public woodlands in El Burgo and Yunquera, which will be used to launch operations and test the full functionality of the supply chain.

During the opening ceremony, the president of the provincial authority, Francisco Salado, highlighted the practical usefulness of the facility.

“We now have suitable facilities for processing forest waste, turning it into wood chips, which can be used in the biomass boilers we have installed in all the municipalities of the Sierra de las Nieves,” he said.

Energy production goes hand in hand with another necessity: keeping the forests clean. Salado said that in the region alone there are some 33,000 hectares of public woodland that require regular maintenance. Removing branches, logs and vegetation reduces the amount of fuel available in the event of a fire and helps to preserve the forests.

In fact, this cleaning is no longer merely an expense when the collected material can be reused. When converted into biomass, it can be used to replace some of the diesel or electricity used to heat public buildings. The provincial government said that this change will reduce carbon dioxide emissions and ease the burden of energy bills on local councils.

The Malaga provincial authority now plans to extend the use of biomass boilers to municipalities in the Genal valley and the Guadiaro valley, with a further investment of nine million euros. With the plant now operational, the Sierra de las Nieves has come full circle in its approach to forest management and the heating of its public buildings: what is removed to reduce risks will now be turned into local fuel.