D1.1 State-of-play of Community Bioenergy across Europe: Market Size, Application and Best Practices

This report presents and reflects upon the results of task 1.1, with the key goal of collecting knowledge on best practices, tools and insights on the key success factors of the application of the community energy concept in the fields of bioenergy and RE heating across EU. The task initiated with a compilation of over 70 cases, which were rated and qualified regarding importance and impact with the help of all the project partners. Through desk research, survey and interviews with specific related cases, relevant information has been gathered regarding existing best practices. Besides the survey results, thirty cases were selected and further analysed highlighting (i) key elements of the bioenergy community concept in terms of citizen participation, technologies used, factors that facilitate or pose barriers to community bioenergy heating projects (and how these factors change across regions); (ii) the environmental, social and economic impact they managed to achieve, and (iii) the lessons that could be derived from their actual deployment and implementation. For this task, both qualitative and quantitative methodological approaches were applied to give a general overview of numbers and representation via the surveys, interviews and desk research. The interviews provided insights into motivations and challenges experienced from within RE cooperatives and associations. The surveys provided an insight of the potential for bioenergy expansion in Europe, while the desk research complemented the interview and survey data, bringing further depth to the analysis. The results were combined and further analysed and summarised through a comparative qualitative approach, where the data intersection provides an overview of the bioenergy market challenges and assets across Europe. The breadth of the data has provided a richer assessment and analysis, fulfilling the task objectives. This report results feed into various WPs and Tasks, for example: WP1 towards T1.4 with an initial overview of existing heating uptakes needs and challenges; WP2 towards T2.1 and T2.2 with relevant input for the type of content that can help the BECoop assessment tool and toolkit; WP3 towards T3.1 towards understanding reasons behind the various stakeholders’ motivations and how best to tap into those for a valuable mobilisation supporting the project development. Furthermore, this report provides a baseline towards key findings that support creating valuable engagement and help the deployment of bioenergy communities in the upcoming future