Severn Wye Energy Agency
Key Points
- Developing best practice tools
- B2B networking within the biomass sector
- Capacity building in the supply chain
- Increased deployment of biomass heat and CHP
- FOREST website - www.forestprogramme.com
FOsteRing Efficient long term Supply parTnerships
FOREST is a 30 month project, supported by Intelligent Energy Europe, which seeks to promote the growth of biomass supply chains across several regions of Europe.
Background
The bio-heat market has traditionally been in domestic dwellings with the use of log stoves. However, as the need for renewable heat has been established applications of larger wood chip and pellet heating systems and CHP schemes have been developed. The level of maturity of these larger non-domestic bio-heat markets vary from country to country, but the key to a successful and sustainable market is customer confidence in the entire supply chain from the fuel through installation of efficient and reliable boiler systems to ongoing maintenance.
Latest Information
March 2012 - the FOREST partners have just returned from WSED in Austria, one of the world's largest energy events. The next event showcasing FOREST is the Renewable Energy Marketplace 2012 at Westpoint, Exeter, on Thurs 8 March. FOREST materials, including best practice guides covering contracts and the use of standards, are available on the official FOREST website, with more to come soon.
Subsidised Study Visits - €500 funding is available for bioheat businesses in SW England to attend a study visit to Växjö, Sweden (29-31 May 2012), to explore some examples of best practice and learn more about how these countries have grown their bioheat markets into billion-euro industries over many years. Contact Severn Wye for details (£50 non-refundable deposit required).
Alastair Stevens, a Severn Wye project manager working on FOREST, gave a presentation on UK pellet market developments at the European Pellet Conference - part of WSED in Austria - and the slides are now available - DOWNLOAD NOW >>
Aims
The FOREST project aims to work across the whole supply chain, covering both the supply of the fuel and the installation and maintenance of the boiler systems. Its key objective is to work directly with bio-businesses in this supply to develop and consolidate long-term supply chain partnerships that will give the end user confidence in the total bio-heat system and so encourage investment from larger non-domestic heat users.
Activities
The project started in June 2010 and will run through to November 2012. In our region, Severn Wye will work in association with the University of Exeter and RegenSW. The project's kick-off meeting was held in Exeter in June 2010, and work is now underway in the 7 regions involved. Over its 30 month duration, the key outputs and results from the project will be:
The sole responsibility for the content of this document lies with the authors. It does not represent the opinion of the European Communities. The European Commission is not responsible for any use that may be made of the information contained therein.
Severn Wye Coordinators
Kierson Wise - Head of Partnerships & Development
![[email]](site_graphics/icon_email.png){kind=icon} | kierson |  |
![[phone]](site_graphics/icon_phone.png){kind=icon} | +44 (0)1452 835073 | |
Alastair Stevens - Project Manager
| alastair | |
| +44 (0)1452 835067 | |
Related Projects
- The development of an extensive interactive online toolkit of best practice resources and training materials to support the development of more efficient supply chain businesses;
- Three regional trade fairs and 6 cross-regional business exchange visits to allow direct networking between businesses in the supply chain to exchange knowledge and foster the development of new supply partnerships. At least 600 bio-businesses would expect to be engaged on this way.
- Capacity building in the in the supply chains through training with the tool-kit materials and direct support actives to broker new supply partnerships and help consolidate existing ones. At least 300 bio-businesses will be directly supported in this way.
- A compensative project website providing extensive access to all the tools and services developed in the project and supporting wider B2B networking activities and knowledge exchange.
The target sector for the FOREST project will be the larger non-domestic applications where confidence in the full supply chain is critical to releasing investment. This includes biomass CHP systems up to 10MW in capacity.
The overall steering of the FOREST project will be carried out by a steering group with representation from each of these partners, chaired by the co-ordinator. The steering group will meet twice per year as part of a wider consortium meeting covering both management and technical issues.
Project Partners
University of Exeter - UK - Co-ordinator
RegenSW - UK
Energikontor Sydost - Sweden
Baltycka Agencja Poszanowania - Poland
O Ö Energiesparverband - Austria
Comitato Termotecnico Italiano - Italy
Tipperary Energy Agency - Ireland
Agencia de Provincial de la Energia de Burgos - Spain