The ERA-NET Cofund BESTF3 built on the results of and the lessons learnt from the two previous BESTF ERA-NET Plus initiatives and used the established network to bring together national and transnational organisations with an interest in promoting the greater use of bioenergy. The overarching aim was to kick-start large scale investment in close-to-market implementation of bioenergy. BESTF3 successfully achieved the goals of the call topic LCE-18-2015 by implementing a joint programme for bioenergy demonstration projects to demonstrate enhanced bioenergy technologies to help Europe progress towards achieving its 2020 targets.
The key objectives of BESTF3 were to:
1. implement a single joint transnational collaborative funding call with EU top up funding (the Main Call) to support projects focused on the next generation of bioenergy.
2. launch follow on collaborative funding calls without EU top up funding (the Additional Call) with wider TRL scope than the Main Call;
3. maintain and enhance coherence and networking between national bioenergy programmes across the EU;
4. further the demonstration of enhanced bioenergy technologies in order to help develop robust project plans for a range of demonstrator and flagship plants, that will help Europe to make progress towards achieving its 2020 energy targets;
5. disseminate knowledge gained from the programme and individual projects across the EU.
The Main Call enabled the funding of two transnational demonstration projects; Phoenix (project cost €2.04M ) and Waste2Bio (project costs €1.27M) both of which successfully completed their objectives in 2019 and 2020 respectively. Both achieved significant cost reduction results thus enhancing the cost effectiveness of the technology and contributed to commercialisation in the sector.
Project Phoenix was part of a larger innovative waste gasification plant in the West Midlands (UK) known as the Sustainable Energy Centre funded by the Energy Technology Institute
https://www.eti.co.uk/programmes/bioenergy/waste-gasification-commercial-development-plant(odnośnik otworzy się w nowym oknie). Phoenix developed and demonstrated a direct port injection gas engine that used compressed syngas from the gasification plant. Project Waste2Bio
http://www.waste2bio.com/(odnośnik otworzy się w nowym oknie) sought to recover energy from organic waste in order to produce bioethanol and bioenergy. The efficacy of such technologies was demonstrated and verified in an industrial demonstration plant (IMECAL). The project valorized urban waste by obtaining two energy recoverable products and an organic fertilizer, improving the energy balance integration of the whole process.
Separately the Additional Calls, a collaboration between BESTF3/ERANET Bioenergy was highly successful; over the period of the programme the funding agencies launched three additional joint calls which funded eleven projects. By 2020 four of the projects had successfully completed their objectives whilst the remaining seven are working towards their objectives. The total funding provided for these projects was €14.1M with a high degree of industrial involvement.
