Improve regional policies for bio-energy and territorial development
BACKGROUND- In a context of global climatic, energetic and economic crisis, renewable energy is an urgent priority. Among renewable energies, bio-energy generated from different types of “biomass” has a big potential. In 2005, the EU approved its Biomass Action Plan (BAP) and invited the Member States to adopt national BAPs.   OBJECTIVES- The BIO-EN-AREA project is a mini-programme aimed at exchanging and transferring experiences in order to increase the capacities of EU regions to favour and optimize the use of bio-energy. The whole project's activities are dedicated to this objective, focusing on the elaboration of Regional BAPs.   PARTNERSHIP- The partnership is a mix of more and less experienced partners in bio-energy, from South, Central and North Europe, involving The Regional Entity of the Energy of Castilla y Léon (Spain), Lead partner, and The Region of Western Macedonia (Greece) in South Europe, The Autonomous Province of Trento (Italy) and The Self-governing Region of Kosice (Slovakia) in Central Europe, The South-East Regional Authority of Ireland, The Regional Energy Agency of South-East Sweden and The Tartu Regional Energy Agency in South Estonia, in North Europe.  ACTIVITIES- In component 3, partners share experiences on policy issues at regional level. Key-events will be 3 thematic seminars on the development of bio-energy from 1) forest & wood biomass, 2) energy crops, agricultural by-products & livestock wastes biomass, 3) urban waste biomass. In component 4, participants in sub-projects share experiences on good practices for bio-energy development at local level, transfer methodologies relating to promising practices, develop new approaches for bio-energy planning at territorial level. Communication is a major activity, with the EU regions and bio-energy stakeholders as main target, and the project’s website, a semi-annual newsletter and open seminars and conferences as main communication tools.  OUTPUTS- The main synthetic outputs will be 5 draft Regional BAPs elaborated by PAT Trento, SRG Kosice, Western Macedonia, SE Sweden and South Estonia, and 2 BAP Implementation guidelines by SERA Ireland, and EREN Castilla y Léon. A good practices database will be accessible on-line. The final publication will show the results of the exchange and transfer of experience among partners on public policy issues at regional level, and among participants in sub-projects.