Renewable Energy - Projects

The full name of this project is Development of Advanced BIOREFinery Schemes to be INTEGrated into Existing Industrial Fuel Complexes and thus reflects the main objective. Several biomass processing sectors are considered within the BIOREF-INTEG project including sugar/starch (bioethanol), biodiesel, pulp and paper, conventional oil refineries, power production, the food industry and the agrosector. The identification of innovative biorefinery concepts within this project could be beneficial to the aforementioned sectors by significantly increasing the overall economic profitability, and decreasing the overall environmental impact of their conventional processes.

The project is coordinated by the unit Policy Studies of the Energy research Centre of the Netherlands (ECN). It is a Coordination and Support Action Project within the framework of the FP7 programme (Theme Energy). The project is funded by the European Commission from June 2008 until May 2010. Next to ECN the participants involved are:

• 4 Small- and Medium-sized Enterprises (SME)
  • Energy Technology Centre (ETC), Piteå, Sweden (forest-based biorefinery)
  • Ten Kate Holding, Musselkanaal, Netherlands (high quality fats & proteins)
  • Value for Technology VFT, Erps-Kwerps, Belgium (industrial marketing services with focus on renewable resource materials)
  • Bioro, Ghent, Belgium (biodiesel)
• 3 industries:
  • Abengoa Bioenergy New Technologies, Spain (bioethanol)
  • Cehave, Netherlands (high quality animal feed)
  • Repsol, Spain (conventional oil refinery)
• 2 universities
  • Aston University, United Kingdom
  • University of Ghent, Belgium
• 3 research institutes
  • Technical Research Centre VTT, Finland
  • Agrotechnology and Food Sciences Group AFSG, Wageningen, Netherlands
  • INNVENTIA (formerly STFI-Packforsk), Stockholm, Sweden (pulp & paper).

Next to being the coordinator ECN Policy Studies also leads Work Package 1. The goal of WP1 is to identify and map existing industrial fuel producing complexes in Europe that allow for the integration of biorefinery processes. The sectors dealt with are: sugar & starch (bioethanol), biodiesel, pulp & paper, conventional oil refineries, power production, the food industry, and the agrosector.

More information about the project, work packages, partners, events and links to publications can be found on the website of BIOREF-INTEG.

The contact person for ECN is Hamid Mozaffarian.