BioMob: Biomass Mobilisation

Final Partner Meeting held in Nyíregyháza, Hungary on 11th and 12th October, 2011

 

The project partners from the four BioMob regions travelled to the city of Nyíregyháza in Hungary in October for the fourth and final meeting of the BioMob project. At the meeting, the draft Joint Action Plan for the project was discussed and agreed by the partners. Furthermore, the further opportunities for the development of biomass industries was discussed, including the viability of the ESCo model and the viability of waste to energy facilities in the regions.

 

The Joint Action Plan will now be finalised and published by the partners, and will recommend the next steps that should be taken. This will be used to inform local and regional policy makers in the four partner regions.

 

BioMob partners in Nyíregyhaza, Hungary

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Project partner meeting held in Samso, Denmark on 28th April, 2011

 

The project partners from the four BioMob regions met on Samso Island for the 3rd international project meeting to discuss progress on project implementation. At the meeting, all four regions – the Mid-West Region of Ireland, the North Great Plain Region of Hungary, the North Central Planning Region of Bulgaria and the Mid-Juttland Region of Denmark – presented Regional Action Plans, which identify the key issues and bottlenecks that need to be addressed to increase the mobilisation of biomass in each region. The Joint Action Plan, which will now be prepared by the partners, will seek to address the common issues and develop a joint approach to addressing them.

 

Group Photo of BioMob partners

 

Further information in relation to the Samso Energy Academy can be found at: www.energiakademiet.dk.

The Biomass Strategy and Action Plan for the Mid-West Region can be downloaded here (PDF document).

The next meeting of the BioMob partners will be held in Hungary in October 2011.

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BioMob is a project supported by the European Regions of Knowledge initiative within the Seventh Framework Programme for Research and Technology Development. The Mid-West Region is partnered with three other regions in Europe – Ruse in Bulgaria, Mid Jutland in Denmark and Debrecen in Hungary. Technical support to the project is provided by EUBIA – the European Biomass Industry Association. In the Mid-West, the MWRA is working with Shannon Development (lead partner), the University of Limerick and Moher Technologies to deliver the project. Technical assistance is also provided by the Institutes of Technology and the Local Energy Agencies in the Region.

Bioenergy refers to renewable energy derived from biomass. Biomass is the biodegradable fraction of products, waste and residues from agriculture (including vegetal and animal substances), forestry and related industries, as well as the biodegradable fraction of industrial and municipal waste. It also includes crops specifically grown for energy use. Using various transformation processes such as combustion, gasification, biorefinery etc the biomass of either transformed into biofuels, bioheat or bioelectricity and used for energy production purposes.

BioMob seeks to mobilise biomass resources for regional development. The challenge is to identify appropriate biomass synergies between regions, research themes and enterprise opportunities. This is being carried out through five “Work Packages” in the project:

WP1: Regional Challenges

This action will focus the project on biomass mobilisation and gain a deeper understanding of the research and technology implications, focussing on the gaps between the research demands of biomass mobilisation and the capabilities of the local research and technology performers.

WP2: International Benchmarking

This action will benchmark existing initiatives in the mobilisation of biomass. This will be carried out against the European and international state-of-the-art and best practice in biomass mobilisation. Opportunities for the creation and exploitation of intellectual property related to biomass will be explored.

WP3: Action Plans

The plans will have two parts: individual plans in which each of the regions will set out its strategy for mobilising biomass. A Joint Action Plan will focus on collective plans ensuring the establishment of appropriate collaborative support structures and knowledge transfer activities between the participating regions in BioMob.

WP4: Business Development

This action will ensure the final delivery of results to biomass enterprises in each region, linking the project outcomes with enterprises and potential users in the regions. The local and trans-national results will be systematically introduced to groups of firms and customised to the growth strategies of individual enterprises.

WP5: ExploitationThis action will identify proposals prepared to the level necessary to respond to opportunities presented by the availability of, for example, national funding or structural funds, including a manual of best practice in the mobilisation of biomass through research-driven clusters.

BioMob Progress

BioMob is a two year project (2010 – 2011). The Regional Challenges work package is now complete and demonstrated considerable under-use of biomass resources in all the regions: there is potential to increase the use of “thinning” from established forestry, biodegradable organic waste from both animals and municipal sources is a further potential resource and a third possibility is dedicated biomass energy crops, such as rape seed and miscanthus.

Substantial constraints exist: there are gaps in information, training and advice, transportation costs are significant and market demand needs to be promoted. International Benchmarking is currently underway and confirms that there is much to be learnt from interregional knowledge transfer.

Project Website: http://www.biomob.eu/

For further information on this project, please contact Ms. Deirdre Byrne: dbyrne@mwra.ie

The BioMob Project is co-funded by the 7th Framework Programme.