Hungarian project partners organized a workshop on Nov. 29. in Gödöllő (Hungary) for local and regional decision makers to promote COACH BioEnergy. The workshoped proved a big success with lots of interested municipalities and NGOs.

The representative of the Hungarian government, from the Ministry of Development, Mr. Zsolt Gémesi presented the political targets for Hungary in biomass utilization, and the achievements of former years by renewables. In Hungary biomass keeps on playing a dominant role among renewables. The new national renewable energy action plan is under construction and shall be soon submitted to the European Commission. The ratio of renewables within the gross final energy consumption of the country has been increased from the compulsory 13% to 14,6%.

Mrs. Katalin Varga from ENERGIAKLUB introduced Coach BioEnergy, a European Program in Central and Eastern Europe for strengthening the energy use of biomass. The target of the project is to establish a transnational consulting network for regions, by using up-to-date scientific knowledge. 18 organisations cooperate during the 36-month-period to get the network’s broad service started in 2011.

( www.coach-bioenergy.eu)

Mrs. Emese Kovács from ENERGIAKLUB presented the opening of the Biomass League in Hungary, as part of the RES Champions League. The RES Champions League is a network of national RES leagues, which aims at creating a positive renewable energy competition between European cities, towns and villages.

In Hungary, the utilisation of biomass doesn’t always happen in a sustainable way. To encourage municipalities ENERGIAKLUB presented a system of sustainability criterias. The sustainable energy utilization of biomass can be carried out only by using biomass that is locally available, the scale of utilization is based on the local heat demand, and the utilization happens in a decentralised way.

Mr. Norbert Kohlheb from the Szent István Univesity in Gödöllő presented the opportunities of Renewable energy strategy planning (developed in the course of the project Coach BioEnergy) implemented in a village Szada (Hungary). The strategy helps municipalities to consider the biomass and renewable energy potential of the region, to reflect the demand of the regional society, and how to calculate the costs.

Ms. Melinda Soltész-Lipcsik from Energiaközpont (Energycenter) introduced the statistics of the tenders of the EU subsidies for renewables, and presented some best practices for biomass and biogas.

On the second part of the conference, numerous succesful and sustainable biomass projects from Hungary were presented, to encourage the municipalities to follow their examples. The experiences of planning, establishing and operation generated a lot of questions in the audience, and built up a really interactive communication.

Date of the workshop: 29-11-2010

Venue: Szent István University, Gödöllő (Hungary)

Coordinator:

• ENERGIAKLUB – by support of the projects Coach BioEnergy and RES Champions League
• Szent István University, Gödöllő

Participants: 52 mayors and representatives of municipalities, companies active in biomass and biogas industries