Renewable Energy - Projects

Promotion of Biofuels for Sustainable Development in South and Southeast Asia

The project "ProBIOS: Promotion of Biofuels for Sustainable Development in South and South-east Asia" aims at facilitating Government Officials and other stakeholders through strategic capacity building and appropriate technology partnerships with EU. The project is being implemented by Winrock International India (WII), and assisted by the consortium of consultants led by the two EU partner organizations The Energy Research Centre for Netherlands (ECN), Netherlands, and Research Centre for Energy, Environment and Technology (CIEMAT), Spain, under the "Operations and Practical Dialogue" component under Asia Pro Eco Program of the European Commission.

Objective
The overall objective of the project is to promote the use of biofuels in India and neighboring countries. For this, both the production of biomass for biofuels should be increased, and the demand for biofuels should be encouraged. The barriers to the use of biofuels are still substantial, as there is no long-term policy for promotion of biofuels, no financing mechanism in place, the awareness in the transportation sector of this clean technology is low, and the best technologies are not always available to Indian companies. In order to meet the objective mentioned above, this project aims to raise awareness and develop adequate capacity in India and the neighboring countries to increase use of biofuels in order to improve local environmental conditions and promote sustainable investment. Co-operation between India and European Union is a specific aim of the project, as it would encourage both technology transfer and investment flows. The project will ultimately improve the environmental quality in the Asian region, also an impact on the global climatic conditions. It is also projected that there will be a long-term sustainable investment and trade between EU countries and the South and South-east Asian countries. There will surely be an improvement in the environmental performance in the transportation sector.

See for more information the project site www.probios.org or contact Paul van den Oosterkamp