EU-funded bioenergy projects

BERST: The project  BioEconomy Regional Strategy Toolkit (BERST) is funded under the FP7 programme  for a duration of 24 months and tries to provide strategies for the establishment of regional bioeconomies (http://www.berst.eu/)

BIOSURF: The BIOSURF consortium consists of 11 partners from 7 countries and strives to increase the production and use of biomethane (from animal waste, other waste materials and sustainable biomass), for grid injection and as transport fuel, by removing non-technical barriers and by paving the way towards a European biomethane market (www.biosurf.eu).

EMPR Metrology for Biogas: The EMRP Metrology for Biogas project aims to develop and validate traceable methods for determining key impurities, moisture, particulates, calorific value, and density in biogas in order to meet the requirements of this quality specification (http://projects.npl.co.uk/metrology-for-biogas/)

BIOGAS³: BIOGAS³ will promote the sustainable production of renewable energy from the biogas obtained of agricultural residues and food and beverage industry waste (agro-food waste) in small-scale concepts for energy self-sufficiency. This action will contribute to secure, sustainable and competitively priced energy for Europe by promoting new and renewable energy sources and supporting energy diversification (www.biogas3.eu)

ISAAC: The ISAAC (Increasing Social Awarness and ACceptance of biogas and biomethane) is financed by Horizon 2020 Programme and its main aim is to remove non-technical barriers, such as lack of public acceptance and coordination for the biogas facilities diffusion, normative and legislative inadequacies, in order to support biogas/biomethane market penetration in Italy and make plants implementation easier within the national context. The project will construct a communicative model to spread balanced information, based on environmental and economic benefits, between all the actors potentially involved in biogas/biomethane implementation. At the same time, actions will be focused on reducing the fragmentation between farmers, foresters and other stakeholders in order to reach the minimal facility dimension needed, increased biogas and biomethane penetration and reduce cost management (http://www.isaac-project.it).

Bin2Grid: Bin2Grid aims to turn unexploited food waste into biomethane supplied through local filling stations network. The overall objective of Bin2Grid is to promote segregated collection of food waste as energy source, conversion to biogas, and its upgrading to biomethane and utilization in associated network of filling stations (http://www.bin2grid.eu).

BiogasAction: BiogasAction aims at promoting the production of sustainable biogas throughout the EU, especially by exchanging best practice, creating new business models, and increasing investments in biogas production. BiogasAction can contribute to the increase of the share of sustainable bioenergy in the final energy consumption, to a reduction in the transaction costs for project developers s well as to the development of better policies, financial frameworks and market support at national and regional levels (http://biogasaction.eu/).

Grass to Green Gas: The GR3 project aims to promote the use of grass and other herbaceous residues from landscape management as a resource for biogas in Belgium, Italy, Germany, Denmark and Portugal. The energy potential of these residues remains underutilized across Europe mainly due to barriers like the insufficient awareness and acceptance of suitable technologies for the mowing, storage and anaerobic digestion of grass residues, absence or lack of cooperation between stakeholders along the value chain, as well as legal barriers. The project will increase renewable energy production without competing with food production, protect permanent grasslands from land use changes, and increase ecological landscape management (www.grassgreenresource.eu ).

SecureChain: SecureChain is a Horizon 2020 renewable energy project, aiming to promote a Sustainable Supply Chain Management (SSCM) practice for bioenergy that meets highest environmental quality and financial viability standards and targets local biomass suppliers, energy producers and financial sector players. The project targets six representative model regions, covering a broad range of market situations and technical-socio-economic barriers in the European bioenergy sector. Local market actors in the bioenergy sector obtain hands-on support during the implementation of the SSCM to overcome urgent barriers and foster market uptake in the regions (www.securechain.eu).

FORBIO: The FORBIO project will develop a methodology to assess the sustainable bioenergy production potential on available “underutilized lands” in Europe (contaminated, abandoned, marginal, fallow land etc.) at local, site-specific level. Based on this methodology, the project will produce multiple feasibility studies in selected case study locations in three countries. The FORBIO project will also apply a series of innovative approaches in order to develop roadmaps for the removal of economic and non-economic barriers to sustainable bioenergy deployment and in order to promote and facilitate the formation of partnerships between farmers, bioenergy producers and local institutions (forbio-project.eu)

SEEMLA: The main objective of the H2020 funded EU project SEEMLA (Sustainable Exploitation of Biomass for Bioenergy from Marginal Lands) is the establishment of suitable innovative land-use strategies for a sustainable production of plant-based energy on marginal lands while improving general ecosystem services. The use of marginal lands (MagL) could contribute to the mitigation of the fast growing competition between traditional food production and production of renewable bio-resources on arable lands (seemla.eu).

BioEnegyTrain: BioEnergyTrain brings together fifteen partners from six EU countries to create new post-graduate level curricula in key bioenergy disciplines, and a network of tertiary education institutions, research centres, professional associations, and industry stakeholders encompassing the whole value chain of bioenergy from field/forest to integration into the sustainable energy systems of buildings, settlements and regions. The project will foster European cooperation to provide a highly skilled and innovative workforce across the whole bioenergy value chain, closely following the recommendations of the SET-Plan Education Roadmap (bioenergytrain.eu).

Bioenergy for Business: The H2020 project Bioenergy4Business (B4B) aims at supporting and promoting the (partial) substitution of fossil fuels (such as coal, oil, gas) used for heating with available bioenergy sources (such as by-products of the wood-based industry, forest biomass, pellets, straw and other agricultural biomass products) in the project partners’ countries and beyond (bioenergy4business.eu).

GreenGain: The greenGain project aims to provide EU-wide platform to raise awareness on the availability of biomass sources for energy production which are primarily not cultivated as energy crops and which do not compete with food production. The main objective is to contribute to identification of sustainable sources of biomass to meet EU’s growing demand for renewable energy (greengain.eu).

Biomasud Plus: The overall objective of this project is to develop integrated solutions to promote the sustainable market for Mediterranean solid biofuels for residential heating. It aims to promote the sustainable market for solid biofuels in seven Mediterranean countries by (i) establishing quality standards and implementing quality certification systems for local unexploited resources (e.g. olive stones, nut shells, vineyard prunings, etc.), (ii) assessing the existing barriers and identifying solutions with emphasis on the sustainability and quality control systems, and (iii) developing tools and databases with information about sustainable biomass resources so as to have a global vision and identify sustainable solid biofuels supply chains (biomasudplus.eu).

BioRES: BioRES aims at introducing the innovative concept of Biomass Logistic and Trade Centres (BLTCs) in Serbia, Croatia and Bulgaria based on international cooperation with European technology leaders. The BLTCs as regional hubs will help increasing local supply and demand for woody bioenergy products (bioresproject.eu).

BioVILL: The overall objective of BioVill is to develop regional bioenergy concepts in Slovenia, Serbia, Croatia, Former Yugoslav Republic Of Macedonia (F.Y.R.O.M.) and Romania up to the investment stage in order to become “bioenergy villages”. This will increase the market uptake of bioenergy on the basis of cooperation with partners from countries with established bioenergy markets (Austria, Germany). In the set-up of bioenergy villages along the bioenergy value chains it will involve at least 500 participants in order to have a critical mass of key actors (www.biovill.eu).

SRCplus: The overall goal of the SRCplus project is to support and speed-up the development of local supply chains of Short Rotation Woody Crops (SRC) by implementing various capacity building measures and regional mobilization actions for the key actors in local supply chains. The SRCplus project is implemented in 7 target regions in Germany, Croatia, Latvia, France, Czech Republic, Greece, and Macedonia. A partner from Sweden is involved in the project actions due to the long-time experience with SRC in Sweden (srcplus.eu).

BioEnergy Farm II: Building upon the findings of the first BioEnergy farm project, BioEnergy Farm II emphasises on micro-scale biogas installations which mainly use own manure and feed left-overs from the farm as feedstock. Within the project  farmers will be informed about the existing options for micro-scale digesters. Furthermore they will be assisted in checking the feasibility of a micro-scale digester on their farm. Within these feasibility studies different ways to use the biogas will be analysed; like producing electricity and heat with a CHP installation, gas upgrading for gas grid feed-in, producing heat in a biogas boiler and upgrading the biogas to transport fuel (bioenergyfarm.eu).