To unlock the bioenergy community potential, BECoop has a range of actions such as events, research and awareness activities as well as the development of tools and services for the uptake of community bioenergy. BECoop generates technical and business support to stakeholders lacking knowledge or experience, to break the barrier of an information lack and further support the uptake of community energy/REScoop and the bioenergy initiatives. The catalogues are available as one report here or split in the below sections, allowing the readers to only focus on the information needed.
The technical support services include two types of inputs:
- technical catalogues describing each a heating technology, based on an overview of the technical aspects, the information required to do a first assessment of the profitability, the steps to be followed before investing and the stakeholders that can help get this information.
- factsheets, gathering in a more visual format recommendations about each specific topic.
The business and financial catalogue guide the bioenergy community stakeholders through complex decisions and minimise their project development efforts.
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BECoop business and finance catalogue
The BECoop business and finance catalogue was developed by identifying and profiling the business models using the Sustainable Business Model Canvas tool to unveil the governance and financial models behind successful community energy cases, and to link them with relevant governance structures.
This exercise capitalized on the first BECoop findings, which presented the framework conditions of RESCoops and the Bioenergy Communities, and identified successful case studies of community renewable energy projects to provide insights on best practices replication potential for the Bioenergy Communities. The assessment of these cases provided a baseline to indicate the relevance of specific governance/business structures for the Bioenergy communities. This assessment led to the definition of a set of respective business and financial support services that can be used to empower existing RESCoops or to manage the creation of new ones in a region. The catalogue of the business and financial support services was presented to experts to validate and enriched by their experience in the field.
The report provides information on the most suitable business models for the uptake of community bioenergy projects as well as an initial definition of the key business support services to be offered to the BECoop pilots to overcome the difficulty in selecting the right business and financing options.
BECoop technical support catalogues
The full technical support catalogue can be divided into sub-catalogues, and includes technical catalogues for:
(ii) biomass district heating and
(iii) biomass co-generation for small-scale applications
(iv) biogas/biomethane plant with biomass for small scale applications
Each catalogue provides insights into the process overview, the steps to be followed, the stakeholders that can support, the social, environmental and economic impacts, as well as success cases.
Three factsheets adding value to the catalogues were developed for:
(i) solid biomass for small-scale applications,
(ii) biomass logistic supply chain and
