Third Network Meeting in the BEn Project 26-05-2011

Partner: WiN Emscher-Lippe GmbH

Event: 3rd Networking Meeting in the Emscher-Lippe Region

Date: May 26, 2011 

Place: Applications Center, H2, in Herten

Number attending: 15

The agenda for the network meeting is reflected in the enclosed schedule for the day’s activities.

Worthy of note is that nine of the participants in this event had already attended the first and second network meetings and that we were able to welcome six new participants at the current meeting.

In spite of the large number of invitations sent out – to about 180 individuals – the number of participants was relatively small. This can be traced back to the fact that the BEn project team had already carried out networking activities in many individual interviews and individual consulting sessions. There is one particular characteristic of our region that requires attention: Because the topic – using biomass as an energy source – is so specific and so varied, the consulting work done by the project team centered less on the basics and fundamental aspects. Instead, the individual consulting sessions dealt with more detailed topics, including applications for various types of permits, fundamental and basic design, and utilization of specific flow patterns for materials and their component substances.

Results:

In the first agenda item Mr. Fritsch reported on the prevailing situation and the objectives being pursued in the partner countries. The presentation was well received. It was possible, during the presentation, to answer specific questions on the situations in the partner countries and in this way to provide information in greater depth. A comparison between the theoretical potential represented by biomass and the amount of useful energy required in the households in the Emscher-Lippe Region prompted the following questions and discussion:

• How great is the potential for biomass that is actually available in the region?

• Does it make any sense to cite the theoretical potential?

Answers and results of the discussion:

Citing the theoretical potential is intended to serve as motivation for the initiation of additional projects. Exact statements as to the biomass potentials actually available are difficult to arrive at, since there is lively import and export activity into and out of the Emscher-Lippe Region. Neighboring regions offer further potentials and energy sinks, as well, so that a survey of the Emscher-Lippe Region alone is not adequately significant. Only estimates of the available potentials can be given, along with classifications, but this is possible only for niches such as highway clippings or diverting flow patterns for materials and their component substances to better energy utilization.

Mr. Fritsch sketched out as follows the procedure for procuring biomass for one specific project:

In so far as the fundamental design and the basic approval planning for a project have been completed, the entrepreneur will have to work the market and acquire the biomass volumes which are available for use at the current time. This naturally also includes questions of price and reliable deliveries over the long term. This should, however, be done in parallel to efforts involved with planning the system and preparing the documentation required for permits, since the results will be have a significant impact on the economic success of the system and on its prospects for meeting the requirements for granting an operating permit.

In the following agenda item – “Presentation of the website and the bioenergy register along with the similarly designed energy atlas for the Recklinghausen Administrative District” – details on the use of these media were discussed, along with the depth of the information offered.

The next item on the agenda was introducing the master plan for the Emscher-Lippe Region. The presentation was made by Mr. Carsten Elkmann, bioenergy manager for the Emscher-Lippe Region. The fundamental aims that were specified here earned the participants’ approval. The participants also confirmed their agreement with the direction for the efforts which had been worked out and presented here.

Upcoming steps in the work:

The following targets should be defined in order to complete the master plan: 

• Specification of the biomass potentials that could actually be used
• Identifying the activities required for sustainable, holistic utilization of biomass potentials in the region
• Improving interregional cooperation
• Opening new energy sinks
• Boosting the efficiency of existing plants
• Setting up a working platform to mobilize and process cuttings resulting from landscape maintenance
• Implementing new ideas (e.g. alternate cultivation methods for energy crops)
• Opening and evaluation of fallow lands for intermediate use by municipalities in bioenergy production