Bioen­ergy Ret­ro­fits for Europe’s Industry EU-fun­ded BIOFIT pro­ject will facil­it­ate bioen­ergy pro­duc­tion by ret­ro­fit­ting Europe’s industries

BIOFIT (www​.biofit​-h2020​.eu) is an EU pro­ject that aims to facil­it­ate the intro­duc­tion of bioen­ergy ret­ro­fit­ting in Europe’s industry. The pro­ject is coordin­ated by BTG Bio­mass Tech­no­logy Group with the involve­ment of Patrick Reumer­man and John Vos. The BIOFIT pro­ject will – dur­ing its 3‑year dur­a­tion — facil­it­ate the intro­duc­tion of bioen­ergy ret­ro­fit­ting in five spe­cif­ic indus­tries, namely first-gen­er­a­tion bio­fuels, pulp and paper, fossil refiner­ies, fossil fir­ing power and Com­bined Heat and Power (CHP) plants, Ret­ro­fit­ting means often lower cap­it­al costs, short­er lead times, faster imple­ment­a­tion, less pro­duc­tion time losses and lower risks. Core actions in BIOFIT are high­light­ing exist­ing bioen­ergy ret­ro­fits and devel­op­ing ten ret­ro­fit case stud­ies in col­lab­or­a­tion with indus­tri­al part­ners. In par­al­lel, the broad­er industry will be engaged and sup­por­ted through five Industry fora (work­ing groups). John Vos explains: ​“Via the fora we can show industry the bene­fits of bioen­ergy ret­ro­fit­ting, while mak­ing sure that views of all those involved are heard, so we warmly invite all rel­ev­ant stake­hold­ers to par­ti­cip­ate in BIOFIT Industry fora.” The accept­ance of bioen­ergy in industry and by the gen­er­al pub­lic is also a focus of the pro­ject. ​“In almost every coun­try in Europe the accept­ance of bioen­ergy is sub­ject of debate”, accord­ing to Patrick Reumer­man. ​“If industry can­not ensure – and demon­strate – sus­tain­able use of bio­mass, pub­lic opin­ion will turn against bioen­ergy.”
The BIOFIT con­sor­ti­um con­sists of four­teen part­ners from eight European coun­tries: Sweden, The Neth­er­lands, Ger­many, Spain, Fin­land, Aus­tria, Bos­nia-Herzegov­ina and Greece. The con­sor­ti­um con­sists of both indus­tri­al part­ners and aca­dem­ic / research part­ners. Source: BIOFIT, press release, 14.12.2018