The BEn team wishes you and your family a wonderful Christmas time and a Happy New Year 2013.

The funding period of the BEn project is ended. The BEn team developed a very helpful tool for the strategic regional energy planning: the biomass energy register. The register is still working and you can get access to the register by clicking on Energy Register in the BEn head menue. Based on the tool for each participating model region master plans including guides were developed and in total 59 actions were identified. The implementation of the selected specific actions is of course still in progress.

We would like to invite you to work with our biomass energy register, you can find contact details from our team under About BEn.

The BEn team wishes you and your family a wonderful christmas time and a great start into the year 2012.

The Final Conference entitled “Bioenergy planning in EU regions” was held in Brussels on Wednesday, October 5, 2011. This event examined the conclusions of three projects aimed at Bioenergy Planning, namely BEn, BioEnerGIS and MAKE-IT-BE.

The conference attracted a number of distinguished speakers, including: 

• Romana JORDAN CIZELJ - MEP, Member of the Committee on Industry, Research and Energy
• Giulio VOLPI – DG Energy, Renewable Energy Policy: The importance of regions in energy planning
• Brian MEANEY - Committee of Regions Rapporteur on biomass

Emilio FONT DE MORA - Project Officer, Executive Agency for Competitiveness & Innovation (EACI) Speakers and members of the consortium for these projects explored the biomass energy register, the methodology for biomass and heat demand assessment, the BIOPOLE tool, the methodology for estimating biomass potentials and technical potentials as energy sources, and local actions for the development and production of energy from biomass. All methods were showcased thanks to the practical experience from these EU regions. The conference brought together representatives from EU institutions, national and regional administrations, research and industry, and NGOs. The conference was the meeting place for all those who have a stake in bioenergy.

The individual projects were:

The BEn project

BEn - Biomass energy register for sustainable site development for European regions

http://www.ben-project.eu

“The biomass energy register as planning and communication tool” 

The local bioenergy actions in the four BEn model regions were reviewed:&nb

• Partner Umbria presented online guides & actions (CRB)
• Partner ELR presented online master plan & actions (WiN)
• Partner presented online Network & actions (RDI) 15
• Partner PGW presented online master plan & actions (IETU) 15

The BioEnerGIS project

BioEnerGIS - GIS-based decision support system aimed at a sustainable energetic exploitation of biomass at regional level

http://www.bioenergis.eu 

• “Biomass and heat-demand assessment: methodology and results
• “BIOPOLE: a web GIS-based DSS for planning biomass energy exploitation”

The MAKE-IT-BE project

MAKE-IT-BE – Decision-making and implementation tools for delivery of local and regional bio-energy chains

http://www.makeitbe.eu  

• “Methodology for estimating biomass potentials and potential technical availability as energy sources”
• “Local actions for development/production of energy from biomass” The event demonstrated that various ideas had been accumulated and that these will make possible fruitful developments

The three bioenergy projects BEn, BioEnerGIS and MAKE-IT-BE have taken up the challenge of bioenergy planning and dealt with sustainable strategies for strengthening regions in the renewable energy sector in forms of methodologies and tools.

The results and conclusions will be presented in the joint conference “Bioenergy planning in European regions” on 5th Ocotber 2011 in Brussel. The conference will bring together representatives from the EU institutions, national and regional administrations, NGOs and stakeholders to discuss practical experience from European regions in defining

• methodologies for biomass potential and heat-demand assessments, and
• tools and local actions for development of production of energy from biomass.

The efforts of the European Union in promoting the use of bioenergy will be presented by several distinguished speakers.

• Romana Jordan Cizelj - MEP - Member of the Committee on Industry, Research and Energy
  
• Emilio Font de Mora - Project Officer - Executive Agency for Competitiveness and Innovation (EACI)
  
• Peter Vadasz - Major of Güssing, the Austrian

During the conference, participants are invited to test the biomass geographic information system and other online tools that support bioenergy planning in the regions.

We look forward to welcome you.

The eighth meeting of the project partners took place in Perugia, the capital of the region of Umbria. The results obtained from the nearly three years of work were compiled at the Biomass Research Center CRB (Centro di Ricerca sulle Biomasse), connected to the University of Perugia, in order to coordinate publication.

The presentation of the work performed by all partners showed different results since the initial situation in the respective regions varied.

In Poland great weight was placed on the basic work on economic utilization of biomass, lobby activities among decision-makers, establishing the network and setting up information platforms for potential players.

In northeast England, by contrast, the focus was on fusion of regional, municipal and private initiatives concerning the British Biomass Energy Model Region and development of a sustainable biomass supply chain.

In ltaly – predominantly characterized by agriculture – improvement of investment support was urged through the energy plan (PER) and the plan for development of the rural region and the structure of information platforms for SMEs was improved. Pilot plants for biogas production for small and medium-sized farms were built up as the partners were able to see for themselves during a visit.

In Germany a significant increase in the installed power has already been noted since the beginning of the project due to the initiation of biomass facilities. More environmentally friendly and economical alternatives were pointed out on the basis of new cultivation methods and new types of crops (wild plants).

Tapping additional sources of energy by generating biomass on brownfield sites as well as surveys regarding further energy sinks will complement holistic, ecological use of biomass in the region.

At this juncture a word of thanks is most certainly due to the partner organization in Italy. Its selection of the site, the atmosphere prevailing there and the excellent organizational work all laid the basis for a successful meeting.

One of the core objectives of BEn is to set up a regional energy register indicating regional energy sinks as well as biomass potentials for energy production in the four model regions. The envisaged regional energy register is now availabel in English and can be accessed here (a multilingual structure of the register is planned and will follow soon). We invite you to actively participate and experience its various usages.

Providing the background for the seventh BEn team project meeting was the town of Pszczyna, south of Katowice. This settlement was founded in the Middle Ages, has experienced many changes of rulers, and has developed to become the center of the largely agricultural region in which it is located. The late Baroque townscape and the impressive castle have been restored. This setting offered an atmosphere that helped the BEn project team achieve the goals set for this meeting.

Major milestones – such as working out the master plans for the individual regions – were discussed. This was flanked by a lively exchange about legislation affecting the conversion of biomass into energy in the individual countries. Also discussed here were the approaches and incentives with which a legal basis could be created for establishing comprehensive and sustainable use of biomass. Essential to the discussion was a comparison of the feed-in tariffs for biomass-based electricity – and for other renewable energy sources – in the individual countries. The Web-based energy register, now almost complete, was presented. It shows the major details for the four partner regions. The first day was rounded out with this presentation and the subsequent discussion about details that have yet to be worked out. The project is now in its final phase, making it possible to present some of the important results. Agreements were reached on additional events and, in particular, the final event. It is to take place in Brussels, before the European Commission.

On the second day of the BEn project meeting, the team visited a 35 kW biogas plant in an agricultural setting at the village of Studzionka. The system is “fed” with inputs – pig slurry, poultry dung and harvest wastes – collected on the farm with its 40 hectares under cultivation. The system – planned and built through the great personal commitment of the farmer and the technical consultant, Mr. Latocha – has received no government subsidies. Difficulties in reaching agreement with the public utility company were overcome in arduous negotiations. The electrical power has been fed into the public utility’s grid for a short while now.

The thermal energy liberated here is used primarily to heat the barns, the digester and the residential buildings on the farm.

The main results of the meeting were summarized in the closing discussion. Future steps and assignments in the individual regions were brought together and documented.

At this juncture a word of thanks is most certainly due to the partner organization in Poland. Its selection of the site, the atmosphere prevailing there and the excellent organizational work all laid the basis for a successful meeting.

The BEn team will participate at FOSSGIS and the European Biomass Conference:

from 5 to 7 April at FOSSGIS in Heidelberg, a presentation will be held stressing the cooperation of local authorities with the research institution regarding GIS in the renewable energy planning and by joining the Fraunhofer exhibition stand at the European Biomass Conference and Exhibition from 6 to 9 June in Berlin with focus on the use of the biomass energy register.   

We look forward to your visit and to an interesting exchange.

The BEn team wishes you and your family all the best for the New Year.

On 28th of October the BEn team met in Germany at Haus Vogelsang in Datteln-Ahsen, a commune in the model region Emscher Lippe. The meeting place was a former big farm in the region and is presently used as seminar place and  office for landscape architects. The heat and hot water supply for the whole office complexe is guaranteed by a wood chip heating system. The wood chips are from around 4000 ha of forest and dumps areas cultivated by Haus Vogelsang. After a short introduction into the local surroundings the results of the work of each WP were presented. The BEn project is in line with the planned procedure and the further steps are conclusive and clear. In spring next year a first version of the web based BEn biomass energy register will presented to the public.

On the second day of the BEn meeting the team visited a biogas plant in Lünen. Two competent employees guided and the team and provided interesting information about the plant: The bioags plant has an installed thermal power of 3,3 MW and of 2,3 MW electrical power. The biogas produced in the plant is transported via a pipeline to 10 CHP-plants spread over the city of Lünen. The electrity produced in the CHP-plants in fed into the public power grid following the Renewable Energies Act. The heat is fed into the local district heating system.

The substrate input of the plant is provided regionally, mainly maize and manure are used for biogas production. The tour ended on the highest point - the top of the Fermenters - in approximately 35 meters height, offering a nice view deep into the Ruhr.

At 2 pm on 26^th October BEn project was presented at the EUREGIA fair and congress in Leipzig. The fair was held for the 7^th time since its inception in 1998 and was once again a leading platform for European local and regional development. This years overarching motto of the entire fair was “Transnational Cooperation in Europe”, which corresponds significantly to the objectives of the BEn project.

The fair was transnational indeed: over 40 national as well as international events took place and 200 speakers and 73 exhibitors from seven countries attracted more than 2000 visitors from 17 countries. Knowing EUREGIA as a high value international regional development fair, the EU Commissioner for Regional Policy, Johannes Hahn, and the prime minister of Saxony, Stanislaw Tillich, traveled to Leipzig to participate in this event definately worth seeing. Additionally, numerous federal and state ministers and state secratercies used EUREGIA as a platform to exchange experience.

BEn was brought together with other projects in the hall “Mulit-purpose area 4” under the subtheme “Science and practice in dialogue”. There, the presentation of BEn was able to visualise results of two years of work and present further steps to be taken after the end of the project. The focus of the presentation was the demonstration of the core part of the project: the webbased bioenergy register and its usage possibilites.

Of particular interest were the discussions after the demonstration concerning the general implementation and use of Open Source technology, its expenditure of time required as well as possible synergies with other registers dealing with renewable energies.

The BEn project took part in the poster presentation of the AGIT 2010 in Salzburg, Austria.

For the last two decades, the AGIT fair is beeing seen as a trendsetter and pioneer in the field of geographic information. This year, AGIT took place from the 7th to the 9th July at the University in Salzburg invited international interested parties. The fair combined applied symposium and practical panel exhibition presenting trends and innovation for the geographical information community. At AGIT Michael presented the BEn apporach using open source GIS and utilising open source data. Topics covering energy related questions, especially on renewable energy were discussed and presented. The BEN poster presentation could add vital input to this discussion, especially since there is a growing awareness of integrating bio energy into energy planning processes.

The BEn project took part in the Poster Presentation, at the second UK Open Source GIS conference "OSGIS 2010" which took place in Nottingham on 21-22.06.2010. The OSGIS conference series has a strong international focus and takes a holistic approach in bringing together speakers and delegates from government, academe, industry and open source communities interested in using and implementing open source GIS systems.

Within the BEn-project the open source GIS systems and freely available data are utilised to build the online regional bioenergy registers for the project model regions.

At OSGIS 2010 Kasia, who runs the BEn project in the NE, presented a poster explaining open source GIS implementation in BEn: "Fill INSPIRE with life, with all its challenges! Supporting sustainable bioenergy development in European regions". The poster generated a lot of interest and was well received.

Interesting discussions were carried out during the conference and accompanying workshops. There is definitely a growing interest in open source GIS among scientific institutions and businesses operating in the geoinformation sector, as when skillfully used the open systems (free of charge) prove to be powerful and flexible tools. For more information see www.OSGeo.org. 

At the End of April 2010 the team of the project BEn met in Güssing, Austria, to held a project meeting as well as a Synergy Working Meeting with the projects MAKE-IT-BE and BioEnerGIS. On the first day, the so called  “Model Güssing” was presented. “Model Güssing” is a strategy for the peripheral and local energy production using all available renewable resources of the region. Additionally, the demonstration site of the region was visited and an active information exchange took place. The separate project meetings took place on the second day. During the BEn meeting, information of the progress of work was presented, current issues and evaluations criteria of quality control were discussed and further steps determined. The Synergy Working Meeting took place on the 30^th of April on which approximately 50 people from 3 projects came together to commonly discuss the improvements of the projects and exchange experiences. This meeting was a good opportunity to introduce and welcome the new project officer Emilio Font de Mora, who supervises the three projects. After the speech of the project officer three project speeches followed, each giving an overview of the project referring to the synergies between the three projects. The following two working groups “Networks/Stakeholders&Masterplan” and “Biomass Potential & GIS” gave the chance for a concrete exchange of results and experiences and the development of a common strategy and its next steps. The three-day event was very informative. A harmonisation between the projects took place, contact details were exchanged and common dissemination events were identified. We thank all participants especially the organisers of EEE for the brilliant realisation, the informative conduct and the nice programm.

Two partners of the BEn project (Fraunhofer and RDI) participated in an international symposium on biomass assessment methods and the adjacent workshop on the biomass availability in Europe on the 15-16 April in Brussels.        
The symposium and the workshop were organised jointly by the European commission Directorate-Generale of Research and two EU projects "Biomass Energy Europe (BEE)" and "Classification of European Biomass Potential for Bioenergy Using Terrestrial and Earth Observations (CEUBIOM)". The BEn partners used this opportunity to disseminate information about the BEn project and to exchange the views on the biomass availability in Europe. Also the latess results of research on biomass assessment methods has been reviewed, what will be valuable input for the next BEn project meeting in Güssing (Austria) from 28 to 30 April. The last day of the meeting in Austria will be dedicated specifically as a synergy working group meeting with the projects MAKE-IT-BE and BioEnerGIS to harmonise the key projects working areas.

...and again a productive and motivating project meeting was successfully concluded. From January 27 to 29, the BEn team met in Hexham, county of Northumberland, UK. The meeting focussed on the detail planning for the biomass energy register, i.e. the visualisation of single biomass classes and subclasses, the determination of the methodology for the identification of potentials, and discussions on possible supporting tools for the user when planning biomass projects/installations. A first outline of the biomass energy register prototype was presented to the project group. The biomass energy register can be put into practice only with the help of the stakeholders, this is why the regional network meetings are a central part of the project BEn. Two network meetings have been already held in the four model regions in order to discuss regional biomass actions as well as the requirements and the direction of the biomass energy register. The actor-foccused approach, in combination with the survey on the regional biomass quantities, is considered to be an exellent basis for the identification of potential biomass projects and innovative approaches in the region.

After the project discussion, an introduction to the region around Newcastle was given. Besides and innovative hotel, the Battlesteads country Inn & Restaurant, which features and innovative woodchip burning biomass boiler supplying heating and hot water to the entire hotel and greenhouses using sustainable fuel from forestry only 1 mile away, also a wood flooring and wood materials plant in Hexham was visited. The provider of the wood material plant, Egger company, is comitted to sustainable use of natural resources. Wood residues and recylced wood that cannot be used in the production is utilised as thermal fuel in their own biomass power plants. The tour was completed with a visit to the North Energy offices, one of the longest established and most experienced energy and sustainability consultancies in the UK. Apart from technical discussions, an energetic informal exchange among the BEn partners took place, enjoying the cosiness and hospitality of British countrylife and the lovely scenery of Hexham. 

At the IEE contractors meeting in Brussels on 8th and 9th December, 40 projectleaders and -partners came together to present their projects and exchange their know-how. The meeting was organised by the EACI (Executive Agency for Competitiveness and Innovation) and focused on the following topic "Solid Biomass for Energy: EU Policy implementation; Planning, Supply Chains & Market Intelligence". Altogether 22 projects were presented framed by presentations of the DG Agriculture, DG TREN and further European organisations. The project BEn was introduced by Katarzyna Zielewska from RDI, our project partner from UK. Representatives of our partner projects BioEnerGIS and MAKE-IT-BE were also attending this meeting.

The meeting was an interesting opportunity to learn about bioenergy-related activities in Europe. For BEn this conference was helpful to gather further information on the activities of other projects, especially those related to GIS, biomass potentials calculations and sustainability indicators. Various approaches of different methods which could also be useful for BEn were discussed and collaboration was encouraged.

We would like to thank the EACI for offering the possibility to take part in this meeting.

We are pleased to inform you that the BEn flyer is available in English. Please feel free to download the BEn flyer in the section "Services/Publications"

BEn team just finished work on the SWOT analysis in regard to the regional situation of bio-energy market in the 4 project model regions. The results (Deliverable 4.2) are available on our website in the section "Results":

• in English language for all project regions 
• in 4 national languages for the relevant regions respectively 

We hope that you will find this piece of work interesting and helpful for your biomass related activities. Within project BEn we will use it as one of the information sources and the next step towards development of the regional biomass master plans.  

From 10 through 11 September 2009, the third project meeting of the BEn project took place in the town of Łąck, which is part of the model region Pojezierze Gostynińskie in Poland. The meeting was held to present and discuss first results of project work and to work out and define next steps to take. After an intensive exchange of the work topics, the first day of the meeting was completed with a visit to model projects in the region.

The environmentally friendly Rural Centre of Ecotourism features a couple of different ecologically sound applications such as combined heat production (CHP) on the basis of biomass and solar thermal energy generation, including a biological water purification installation. The visit included also a wood chip heating system for district heating in Łąck and a straw heating plant for the generation of vapour for a bioethanol plant in Trebki. At the end of the tour, the BEn team had the possibility to learn more about the work of the Ecological Cultural Association ZIARNO in Grzybow.

On the second day of the meeting, the results established on the first day were discussed in more detail, and tailored working topics were elaborated.

The meeting was held in an enchanting and sound setting near Łąck which had an inspiring and positive influence on the working atmosphere.

The next project meeting is going to be held in North-East England in January 2010 and will focus, among other topics, on the presentation of a first prototype of the energy register.

In autumn this year, the second regional network meetings in the model regions (Umbria, Emscher-Lippe, North-East England Gostynin Lake district) are on the schedule.

Data for biomass potentials and data for energy sinks (i.e. buildings with energy consumption) in the model regions North East England, Umbria, Emscher-Lippe, and Gostynin Lake District are compiled via questionnaires and bilateral talks/interviews with the responsible authorities, companies and organisations. The multiple functionality of a future biomass energy register is explained and the usability as planning instrument and strategic decision-making basis will be pointed out. The future register will also be a transparent instrument to support the regional value-added chain and to strengthen the regional co-operation and investments in the biomass to energy sector.

The BEn-Forum offers a discussion platform for your questions or suggestions about the energy use of biomass, the energy register or your thoughts on the BEn-project. Your contributions are warmly welcome and you are invited to register here for free.

In the model regions the first regional network meeting took place. The presentation of the project BEn aroused great interest. Information on the kick-off meetings can be found here.

The second BEn project meeting with partners of all participating regions took place in Perugia. At the meeting in Italy an intensive discussion about the contents of the BEn-register took place. Furthermore the representatives reported about their first network meetings in Italy, Poland and England. Also the website was introduced to the audience. During the two-day meeting the Italian hosts organized a very interesting tour through the charming town of Perugia and presented some biomass plants of the beautiful Umbrian region.

We are happy to announce that the English and German version of BEn-Website is launched recently. The Italian and Polish site will follow soon.

Representatives from partner organizations in Italy, Great Britain, Poland, Austria, Germany and the European Commission came together at Fraunhofer UMSICHT on November 24th and 25th to launch the three-year, EU funded project »BEn« - Bioenergy register for sustainable site development for European Regions.