web de Promobiomasse
The Promobiomasse website was presented by Nasuvinsa, the public company of the Government of Navarra, at the steering committee conducted by all the project partners at Lannemezan, (Occitanie, France). The new website https://promobiomasse.eu, with versions in English, Spanish, French and Portuguese, provides information on the goals and progress of this European project and, in the future, any pilot schemes implemented.One of the key goals of Pomobiomasse is to identify good practices existing throughout the SUDOE territory (southwestern Europe), in relation to the extraction, processing, logistics, marketing and demand for biomass, in order to produce a model that covers supply and demand, that can be applied by the partners in the project, and that encompasses the entire SUDOE territory. Organisations and individuals interested in biomass as an energy source will find examples of good practices on the website and can use a simple search engine to locate best experiences based on the type of organisation making the search, the raw material used, the type of machinery used or the customers targeted, among other criteria.
In the Frequently Asked Questions section, the new website offers information on biomass, how it can be used to produce thermal, electrical and mechanical energy, in addition to the various national and international certifications available to guarantee the quality of the energy products obtained from biomass. The news and agenda sections feature all the latest news and events relating to the project and to the biomass market in general.
Biomass, which is obtained from animal and plant organic matter, constitutes a renewable energy source. The benefits associated with the development of a biomass energy market include reduced greenhouse gasses, less waste, by putting it to good use, and lower external energy dependence. Furthermore, there are other benefits related to regional development, such as the creation of local employment and the valorization of local forest resources, in regions that could have an important biomass potential that has not yet been exploited.
Promobiomasse, a commitment to the short-circuit market
The “Project” section of the website explains that Promobiomasse is an initiative focussed on transnational cooperation as a means to promote the biomass energy market in the SUDOE territory, by developing a supply and demand management model that applies the “short circuit” concept in order to resolve current problems: destructuring of supply; forest ownership divided into small holdings; inefficient exploitation methods; unknown and insufficient demand. The short-circuit model, which is similar to the one applied to local agricultural products, involves a lower environmental impact and a boost to local development.
This section also includes links to the project partners: the Centre Tecnològic Forestal de Catalunya (CTFC); the public society of the Navarra Government – Navarra de Suelo y Vivienda, SA (NASUVINSA); the Agencia Extremeña de la Energía (AGENEX); the Agência Regional de Energia e Ambiente do Interior (ENERAREA), of Región Norte Portugal; the Communauté de Communes du Plateau de Lannemezan (CCPL), of the French department Hautes-Pyrénées; and the Association des Communes Forestières des Pyrénées Atlantiques (COFOR64) of the Pyrénées Atlantiques, as well as 19 associated entities.
Given that the Promobiomasse project is 75% co-funded by the Interreg SUDOE program through the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), the website devotes another of its menus to this program. It explains that Interreg SUDEO (abbreviation for the INTERREG V-B Southwestern European Cooperation Program) supports regional development in the southwest of Europe, by funding transnational projects.
