Periodic Reporting for period 1 - BECoop (Unlocking the community energy potential to support the market uptake of bioenergy heating technologies) Reporting period: 2020-11-01 to 2022-04-30 Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project Over the last years, the EU has witnessed remarkable steps in Renewable Energy (RE) deployment. However, we see an increasingly uneven penetration of RE across the different energy sectors, with the heating sector lagging behind. Community bioenergy schemes can play a catalytic role in the market uptake of bioenergy heating technologies and can strongly support the increase of renewables penetration in the heating and cooling sector. However, compared to other RES, bioenergy has a remarkably slower development pace in the decentralised energy production which is a model that is set to play a crucial role in the future of the energy transition in the EU. The expansion of community bioenergy projects across Europe would be of crucial importance for meeting the EU RE uptake targets. Towards this aim, BECoop aims to foster a broad deployment of bioenergy heating technologies across Europe, by providing the necessary conditions and technical as well as business support tools for unlocking the underlying market potential of community bioenergy. BECoop offers a clear understanding of the dynamic community bioenergy heating landscape at regional, national and EU level, making community bioenergy projects more appealing to interested actors and fostering new links and partnerships among the international bioenergy community. We pilot out to a complementary set of 4 cases across Europe, targeting existing energy communities seeking to include bioenergy heating projects, and local authorities aiming at initiating novel bioenergy community structures in support of their clean energy transition goals. BECoop moves beyond local challenges as we replicate our concept to more EU cases, improving the robustness and attractiveness of community bioenergy investments.BECoop is structured around the following specific objectives:• Analyse the community market potential and identify drivers and barriers for the uptake of bioenergy technologies in the community energy field.• Develop and fine-tune a suite of supporting resources, tools and services for community bioenergy heating project development, customised to the identified market uptake challenges.• Create new bioenergy heating communities and boost the demand for bioenergy through increased social acceptance, capacity building and behavioural change.• Deploy the BECoop support scheme for the market uptake of community bioenergy heating projects, demonstrate their reduced development efforts and assess their impact in 4 diverse contexts.• Empower the community bioenergy ecosystem to scale across Europe through knowledge transfer and replication activities.• Engage and empower policy makers towards the uptake of community bioenergy at regional, national and EU scale. Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far 1. Shedding light on the community bioenergy concept: By M18, BECoop has explored the EU community energy and bioenergy market size, also identifying community bioenergy lighthouse examples (D1.1). We detected EU and regional framework conditions that facilitate or hinder community bioenergy (D1.2). In addition, perceptions and needs of community bioenergy stakeholders were investigated and analysed (D1.3). A report defining the community bioenergy heating uptake needs and challenges at the pilot and EU level area was also presented (D1.4).2. Enable community actors to plan and implement bioenergy projects: By M18, we developed a suite of supporting resources for community bioenergy project development which will be constantly enhanced over the project’s lifecycle. Specifically: the BECoop (i) assessment tool (D2.1) (ii) toolkit (D2.3) (iii) e-market environment (D2.5) and (iv) the technical (D2.7) business and financial support (D2.9) services catalogues.3. Mobilisation of bioenergy communities: By M18, the BECoop stakeholders’ mobilisation and engagement strategy was put in place together with a preliminary definition of the BECoop RESCoops (D3.1). The BECoop capacity building strategy at the pilot level and a preliminary identification of training webinar topics were also defined (D3.3). At the same time, aiming to boost social acceptance for bioenergy community projects, a series of pilot-specific awareness raising campaign strategies and plans were introduced (D3.5). 4. Support the market uptake of community bioenergy projects: By M18, key stakeholders in each pilot region, co-defined a Roadmap and vision for each of the under exploration community (BECoop RESCoops) (D4.1). The project’s future tasks (T4.2 – T4.5) will use these co-created roadmaps as a reference for tailored support services to be provided, aligned to the identified needs and goals of each community.5. Breach the BECoop borders: By M18, BECoop has developed a Knowledge Exchange Platform and a Network of Interest of community bioenergy stakeholders for enabling exchange of knowledge among bioenergy actors, communities and regions (D5.1). Our team has also been working towards providing a set of policy recommendations for improving the framework conditions and achieving a more effective market uptake of bioenergy communities. Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far) We use both (i)existing community energy structures that do not have bioenergy in their mix and (ii)relevant local authorities as agents of change in the local level. We are targeting new potential bioenergy clients, assisting them to see their community bioenergy projects through. We extract hard-to-grasp insights and offer capacity building sessions to stakeholders, equipping them with the skills required for the establishment of sustainable bioenergy communities. We tailor our stakeholders mobilisation strategies to the specific local needs of our pilot cases, demonstrating to project developers how to avoid commoditization of the engagement process. We enhance the social attitude towards bioenergy cooperatives, increasing trust in community-driven initiatives while also practically fostering (technical, business support) the uptake of projects of a variety of readiness level. We replicate our concept to more EU cases, thus, improving the robustness and attractiveness of community bioenergy investments. Expected results until the end of the project: • New bioenergy communities set up in our pilot and replication cases • BECoop inventory of supporting tools and resources for the development and operation of bioenergy communities • A set of validated technical, business and financial services portfolio for optimising bioenergy communities development • The BECoop Knowledge Exchange Platform (KEP) supporting knowledge exchange and partnerships among stakeholders as well as the BECoop Network of Interest (NoI) of community bioenergy stakeholders.• The BECoop Replication Handbook for applying the project outcomes to additional regional settings• Evidence-based national and EU level policy roadmaps.By using BECoop support services and tools, energy communities and authorities will be better empowered to (i) mobilize citizens around existing or new community bioenergy initiatives, (ii) boost local bioenergy demand by improving its image and social acceptance, and (iii) increase feasibility of their endeavours by identifying suitable technical, business and financial solutions, as well as by pooling expertise and partnerships from the wider EU bioenergy ecosystem. Relevant policy and regulatory structures will be empowered with empirical evidence indicating ways to transfer the community energy approach in bioenergy and heating. BECoop promotional material as presented in a Polish workshop BECoop online banner
