Press release
BISCUIT: a new tool to give rural regions a bite of the bioenergy market
A new online tool called BISCUIT (BioPAD Supply Chain Unique Integrated Tool), has been
launched to help the bioenergy market grow in remote and rural regions of Europe and to
highlight business and enterprise opportunities to those looking to enter the sector.
BISCUIT is a product of BioPAD (Bioenergy Proliferation and Deployment), a €0.7 million two
year project funded under the EU’s Northern Periphery Programme (NPP) with partners in
Finland, Northern Ireland, and Republic of Ireland. The tool allows anyone, whether they are
supplier of raw materials, an individual or company interested in producing bioenergy
products, or those wanting to use bioenergy in a business or home, the opportunity to find
out about bioenergy supply chains and the opportunities this renewable fuel source
provides.
Jointly developed by project leaders Western Development Commission (Rep. of Ireland),
Environmental Research Institute (Scotland), Action Renewables (Northern Ireland), and
Finnish Forest Research Institute, Metla) this new innovative resource aims to assist the
movement towards a low carbon society by encouraging the development of a responsible
renewable energy market to the benefit of local communities and businesses.
Bioenergy fuels include wood products such as pellets and chips, energy crops and
agricultural waste. Using these renewable sources of energy instead of coal, gas, or oil
results in lower greenhouse gas emissions as well as providing local economic benefits.
Using bioenergy often requires many stages before the source material is ultimate
converted into heat. These steps can include cultivation or acquisition, procurement,
processing, transportation, and combustion or conversion to produce heat, and/or
electricity.
Each part of the supply chain represents an opportunity for a business or entrepreneur. In
addition, transactions that take place for each part of the supply chain tend to keep money
within the region, rather than paying to importing gas, oil or coal. By providing key
information to a variety of users, from forest owners, haulage firms, machinery suppliers, to
councils, and community groups, it is hoped that BISCUIT will increase the competitiveness
of remote regions.
BISCUIT uses the wealth of information gathered and generated by the BioPAD partners,
and generates a bespoke report according to initial choices made by the user. This produces
a report customised to the users’ interests, whether they lay with one or more fuel type
(wood, energy crops, or other biomass), a specific part of the supply chain, or the whole
process.
While some areas of northern Europe have well-developed biomass supply chains, others
face significant challenges in developing cost-effective and sustainable supply chains to
better exploit their biomass resources. Through BISCUIT, the BioPAD project aims to provide
a wider audience with a better understanding of how biomass supply chains work and
provides access to expert advice and material at no cost to the end user.
Along with the four partners, BioPAD includes 11 associated partners representing five
countries with experience throughout the supply chain. BioPAD aims to help the
development of local renewable bioenergy supply chains to provide sustainable enterprise
opportunities for individuals and communities in remote and rural regions. The BioPAD
project has gathered many case studies across Europe which demonstrate that in the
appropriate setting developing a local bioenergy market produces significant opportunities
for rural and remote areas, by improving security of supply, and stimulating the local
economy by creating jobs and keeping payments for energy with in the community.
Now publically available, BISCUIT was developed following an analysis of regional supply
chains which included the district heating scheme in Wick, Caithness, fuelled with locally
sourced wood chips and anaerobic digestion plant in Creed, Western Isles, which converts
household organic waste into renewable energy.
As an interntaional project BioPAD has drawn upon differences in experience and expertise
between the various counties and jurisdictions of the project and encourage the transfer of
knowledge to inform policy frameworks that support the deployment of renewable energies
in rural areas. Using the breadth of knowledge and expertise from across Europe and using
examples of best practice, bioenergy expertise, established methods and technology,
BioPAD has developed the tool BISCUIT to provide the most effective model to develop
localised bioenergy suppy chains.
BISCUIT can be accessed free of charge at www.BioPAD.eu/BISCUIT and is available to
download as an App from Google Play and the App Store. For more information about the
BioPAD project visit the website www.BioPAD.eu or contact [email protected]