Community bioenergy initiative BECoop moves to pilot phase

Consultancy White polls key stakeholders and coordinates Horizon 2020 project 

The Horizon 2020 project BECoop, that supports the development of community bioenergy in the EU, has just concluded its first year. The boutique consultancy White, that supports numerous EU Horizon 2020 projects, has recently finished analysing the community bioenergy application potential in Europe for BECoop. In the next phase, the project will launch four pilot projects in Greece, Italy, Poland, and Spain. Next to polling the concerned parties, White is also responsible for the overall coordination and contact with the European Commission.  

The three-year BECoop project was launched in 2020 and brings together members of the public and private sphere from across Europe. Its objective is to develop the necessary conditions and technical as well as business support tools, to unlock the underlying potential of community bioenergy, a renewable energy source that is generated from organic matter such as wood, agricultural products and animal and vegetable waste. With heating/cooling needs representing 51% of EU’s total energy consumption, bioenergy solutions are needed to replace fossil-fueled heat. BECoop is a Horizon 2020 project, through which the European Commission supports research and innovation within the EU.

Pilot Projects

White led activities on the definition of the community energy application potential in bioenergy heating. In this context, through advanced social research techniques, White further concluded identifying all relevant stakeholders’ perceptions, needs, misconceptions, opportunities and barriers that may favor or hinder community bioenergy heating actions.

Now, the project will move into its second phase. BECoop will soon launch four pilot initiatives in four European countries: Greece, Spain, Italy, Poland and Spain. There the partners will foster new links and partnerships to promote bioenergy. The selected pilot regions show various characteristics and have different levels of maturity regarding their involvement in community energy, providing a highly complementary synthesis of evidence across Europe. BECoop strives to prove that there is potential for all cases to work their way into building a bioenergy RESCoop, utilizing the tools that will be produced throughout the project. The results of these initiatives will then be used to provide evidence-based scenarios and best practices of how energy communities can integrate bioenergy into their energy mix.  

 

“Bioenergy has huge potential but is currently underdeveloped in Europe. Our analysis shows that the knowledge and acceptance of biofuel varies from region to region. Overall however, it remains fairly untapped compared to other sources of renewable energy such as solar and wind power. The insights from our surveys on European citizens’ preferences, acceptance levels and willingness to join a bioenergy community can now help us to better understand the main facilitators and hindering factors in this area. Moreover, these studies tell us what needs to be communicated in order to build awareness and increase people’s interest in community bioenergy.” says Dimitrios Chapizanis, a project manager at White and project coordinator of BECoop. 

For more information about the BECoop and its events you can visit the project’s website or follow the social media accounts: 

Website: www.becoop-project.eu/ 

Facebook: www.facebook.com/BECoop-H2020 

LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/becoop-h2020 

Twitter: twitter.com/BecoopH2020