The Horizon 2020 ISABEL project continues to reach its goal of expanding the European biogas landscape by a bottom-up process of empowering local communities. ISABEL, in cooperation with partners from its three core regions in Greece (Central and Eastern Macedonia & Thrace), the UK (Yorkshire and the Humber in UK) and Germany (Baden-Württemberg), has worked with local communities to further existing community biogas initiatives, and to aid in the creation of new local biogas projects in areas with the capacity and drive to do so.
The project, which seeks to accomplish its task by way of tapping into local structures of social capital and spurring community driven action, as well as by providing various tools to communities to support local efforts, has seen legitimate results.
In the ISABEL project regions in Greece, where the local level community biogas landscape is considered only in the preliminary stages of development, three bioenergy communities are currently on the path to finalization—Prespes community in Florina County, NEOGAL cooperative in Drama County and Leda-Maria in Thermi municipality. Three more communities—located in Galatista, Nea Moudania and Amindeo—have also expressed interest in working with ISABEL in the future.
In the United Kingdom, where the local level community biogas landscape is considered to be of intermediate development, two local biogas endeavors have made real progress towards actualization: Hockerton in Nottinghamshire and Lincoln in the East Midlands. In addition, a plethora of other local businesses and communities, such as Grimsby Community, Todmorden Community, Suma Foods, HisChurch Charity, Your Community Hub , have been in discussion with ISABEL with regards on their possible future use of bioenergy technology.
In the German ISABEL project regions, which are seen as having a matured landscape of local level biogas development, an additional three communities—Obereschach and Bräunlingen in Baden-Württemberg and Lake Constance’s Mainau Island—are currently undertaking efforts to further their transformation into bioenergy villages. At the same time, another potential community has shown interest; CoAct, who is working with ISABEL in cooperation with the University of Kassel.
Though ISABEL has found success, it has also encountered barriers. Community driven development can be a long, complex, laborious pursuit, and though ISABEL sets out to guide this process, there is no one way for doing so. Work in each community must be tailored to local needs and concerns, which often range from economic and logistical questions, to difficulty spreading information, to a wide range of skepticism including changing scenarios viz. that of active to less active interest and participation of communities and vice versa.
However, despite this, ISABEL work will continue to catalyse interest in community biogas working with these communities, and will further seek the widening of the local level biogas landscape in Europe.