BEn - Regional News from North East England

Northwoods and RDI Ltd. have developed this high level one day seminar  in partnership with ONE North East and the BEn project to give the participants an expert overview of comprehensive issues involved in a planning process of a biomass project and to provide a practical advice on how to address these issues with confidence.

The "Planning and biomass" expert seminar is addressed to the planning and sustainability officers, planning consultants and other professionals involved or interested in the planning issues related to biomass projects.

This one day event (9am - 4pm) takes place on the 14.Sept. 2010 in the Sage Gateshead, Gateshead (UK).

More information in the attached flyer (click here).

Contact: Ben Tansey, John Farquhar, Kasia Zielewska at Northwoods (+44 (0) 1670 513 292) or info@northwoods.org.uk  

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. 

A step-by-step guide for city leaders who want to develop a strategic energy plan using policies that encourage energy efficiency and use of renewable energy in their community has been published by the US. Department of Energy.

It provides an overview of strategic electricity planning for communities, using a step-by-step approach to develop the plan. This method has a high chance of success, because it is based on stakeholder buy-in and political commitment.

See the publication here.

The 3rd. BEn regional meeting in the North East of England took place on the 24. March. It was organised in conjunction with the biannual meeting of the North East Biomass Forum (NEBF), which represents the biomass sector stakeholders in the North East of England.

22 stakeholders from the biomass and bioenergy sector in the BEn English model region took part in the meeting.
The participants represented both public institutions and agencies as well as private companies and community networks such as:

• Forestry Commission,
• ONE Regional Development Agency
• CLA - Country Land and Business Association
• Energy Saving Trust
• Renew
• Northwoods / RDI Ltd.
• National Energy Action
• RES Ltd.
• Gateshead Council
• South Tyneside Council
• Durham County Council
• Parsons Brinckerhoff
• North Energy Associates
• Newcastle University
• LRS
• REFA Ltd.

During the NEBF part of the meeting the latest news regarding biomass related legislation and the recent regional developments have been discussed. The meeting participants also gave an update on their activities.

In the BEn session the project results to date and the prototype of the BEn register have been presented. An initial discussion regarding the regional needs and stakeholders expectations towards the Master Plan development followed giving a valuable input to the project. Further steps have been initiated and will be followed up.

We would like to thank the participants for a fruitfull discussion and for a positive evaluation of the meeting results. Your contribution to the project is highly appreciated.  

On the 5th March Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) published the "Renewable and low-carbon capacity assessment methodology for English Regions". The document includes a separate section on assessment of regional biomass resources.

The purpose of the methodology document is to assist English regions to identify opportunities for renewable energy and low- carbon energy deployment and to ensure a robust and consistent evidence base for setting ambitious regional targets for renewable and low carbon energy in line with national targets.

The Government has also committed up to £1.2 million in funding to support regions to apply the methodology.

For more information see DECC press release. To see the publication click here.

RDI hosted the 4th BEn project consortium meeting in Hexham from 27th to 29th January 2010.

RDI hosted the 4th BEn project consortium meeting, which took place in Hexham from 27th to 29th January 2010.  Ten representatives from five organisations including: Poland, Austria, Germany and Italy visited our region to discuss the progress made within the Ben project. During the three day meeting the prototype of the BEn GIS register was presented by the German leader (Fraunhofer UMSICHT). The status quo and ‘next steps’ for BEn actions were discussed in detail.

The guests also took the opportunity to familiarise themselves with the North East and the regional situation in regard to the bio-energy market.  RDI organised site visits to three biomass systems operating in the area. We are very grateful to Egger, The Battlesteads Hotel and North Energy Associates Ltd., for hosting the BEn group at their sites.

The second BEn North East regional meeting took place on the 25th Sept 2009 in the Stannington Village Hall. This time we invited mainly representatives of the local authorities from the region, public agencies dealing with biomass issues as well as community and business networks active in the field of bio-energy in the North East: 

• North East Biomass Forum (NEBF)
• Forestry Commission
• ONE North East
• Renew
• ConFor
• Natural England
• Newcastle County Council
• Gateshead Council
• Northumberland Council
• Northwoods / RDI Ltd.
• North East Process Industries Cluster (NEPIC)

The attendees expressed their satisfaction from bringing the representatives of the local authorities, regional network and government agencies as well as the forest and biomass industry together.

The overall progress in the project was presented to the participants and the current issues regarding development of the BEn GIS register and a strategic regional Biomass Master Plan were discussed.

Everybody agreed that at the moment the focus should be put on the data collection and development of the GIS tool. It is expected to see the prototype of the tool and the first results of mapping exercise at the beginning of next year. As many further project activties like the development of the Master Plan and BEn specific biomass actions should be based on the information from BEn register it is the priority for project actions now to collect as much relevant data to feed the register as possible. 

There is a strong support to the project from the local stakeholders what is highly appreciated by the BEn team. Thank you for your contributions so far and we are looking forward to work closely with you to support the biomass sector in the North East of England!

On 9 July 2009, the Covenant of Mayors Office released a Sustainable Energy Action Plan (SEAP) template, which was developed together with the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission.

The Local Energy Action Plans (LEAPs), which will be developed by the Covenant Signatories within the Sustainable NOW project, will use these SEAP templates as reference to structure their actions and measures, and to follow up implementation.

We are proud that out of 22 British signatories of the Covenant as much as 12 are from the North East of England! It means that all of our Mayors have signed the Covenant! 

It's a great commitment and responsibility to promote and implement sustainable energy schemes in our region! Within BEn project we aim to cooperate closely with local authorities on the biomass related issues. It is, therefore, worth to stay with us and follow the news from the North East as the BEn project progresses.  

More details on Covenant of Mayors and SEAP’s are available on www.eumayors.eu.

The BEn regional Kick-Off Meeting was held as a part of a biannual meeting of the North East Biomass Forum at the Ignition09 - the 1st UK Woodfuel Expo organised in Newcastle upon Tyne.

18 participants attended the meeting. The represented both the public and private stakeholders in the biomass sector in the North East of England, such as:

• Forestry Commission
• RES Ltd.
• ONE North East
• RDI Ltd.
• REFA Ltd.
• Wood Energy Ltd.
• Northumberland Estates
• Renewable Fuels
• Parsons Brinckerhoff
• Newcastle University
• Egger
• NEA
• UPM Tihill
• North Energy Associates
• Energy Savings Trust

The Kick-Off meeting as well as 2 meetings with other existing networks active in the bio-energy sector in the North East England (CoRE, NREG) identified the following key issues:

• All existing networks have strong identity and cover various areas of the biomass energy scene in the North East

• BEN GIS biomass register is generally perceived as a very useful tool

• The definition of biomass potential needs to be clarified in terms of theoretical, technical, economical, sustainable potential etc.

• Availability and quality of data for the GIS register are of big importance

• Usability of BEN register has to be assured also after the project end

BEn team appreciates all input from the regional stakeholders. We are looking forward to develop the project together to support the biomass supply chain in the North East of England.

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.