News/events

Bioenergy–Regions in Germany — an example for sustainable development in Central Europe

25 regions in Germany are acknowledged bioenergy-regions being the winner of a competition by the German Federal Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Consumer Protection (BMELV) carried out in 2008. For three years these regions were granted up to 400.000 Euro to implement their regional development plans for bioenergy. Since then the Bioenergy-Region project has been a success story implementing bioenergy in rural areas in a sustainable way.

Currently, the bioenergy-regions were offered an extension of the project by the German Federal Ministry. The regions are asked to submit project proposals with new activities and new concepts for an extension state. The Federal Ministry will then decide which of the bioenergy-regions will receive further support for the next project period.

Ms. Daniela Raetz as the project coordinator at the Agency for Renewable Resources presented the project to the 4Biomass project partners and to the representatives of the Central European Bioenergy Centre during a workshop on the 20th of March 2012 in Gülzow. The participants were very interested in the concept of bioenergy-regions. The participants asked many questions and agreed that the model of the bioenergy-regions was worth to be copied by other Central European Regions. In February 2008 the Federal Ministry initiated the nationwide competition to establish regional networks in the field of bioenergy. 25 regions have qualified for BMELV funding through a two-stage selection process. Each of them receives up to 400,000 euros over the period of three years until the year 2012. Investments are not considered for funding as part of this project. The funds allow the regions to implement their regional development plan. This involves exploiting the region’s bioenergy potential and capitalising on each region’s particular strengths. Over this period, the regions are assisted through workshops and a scientific study. The focus of the project is the exchange of information between stakeholders. Also these regions are examples for other regions.

In February 2008 the Federal Ministry initiated the nationwide competition to establish regional networks in the field of bioenergy. 25 regions have qualified for BMELV funding through a two-stage selection process. Each of them receives up to 400,000 euros over the period of three years until the year 2012. Investments are not considered for funding as part of this project. The funds allow the regions to implement their regional development plan. This involves exploiting the region’s bioenergy potential and capitalising on each region’s particular strengths. Over this period, the regions are assisted through workshops and a scientific study. The focus of the project is the exchange of information between stakeholders. Also these regions are examples for other regions.

The ‘Bioenergy Regions’ project aims to contribute to the expansion of the bioenergy sector in Germany and to promote development in rural areas. The competition mobilises existing resources in order to add value within the regions and create new jobs. Concrete objectives are:

• To build and expand networks that can develop and implement innovative ideas for bioenergy production and use
• To remove or alleviate conflicts of interest
• Knowledge transfer
• To establish communicating structures.

The aim of the prolonged project period is to consolidate sustainable structures of the current bioenergy-regions as well as ensuring a transfer of experience and knowledge gained to other regions. Additionally, in this coming project period the coordinators would like to make this project known to other European countries.

More information is available under following website: www.bioenergie-regionen.de/

Contact:
Daniela Raetz
Project coordinator
Agency for Renewable Resources
info (at) bioenergie-regionen.de