June 15, 2016: Dinner Debate in Brussels on mobilising pruning residues to expand Europe's biomass market. Hosted by Czeslaw Adam Siekierski MEP, Chair of the European Parliament's Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, results of the FP7-funded EuroPruning project will be presented in the Members’ Salon of the European Parliament in Brussels.  

The Dinner Debate will give the frame to the presentation of main results of the EuroPruning and recommendations on how to support the use of agricultural residues to increase sustainable bioenergy use in Europe. The event will provide an excellent opportunity to debate the sustainable expansion of the European biomass market. 

The EuroPruning project has developed new machinery and logistics tools for the harvesting and collection of wood prunings, demonstrated new value chains in three EU regions, and developed new recommendations for storage, soil maintenance and business development for positive socio-economic and environmental impacts.

The Dinner Debate will be framed by the project’s final meeting in Brussels held on June 15 and 16, 2016, including meetings of the General Assembly and the Steering Committee as well as a policy workshop and a technical meeting.

ATB participated in the EuroPruning project as leader of WP7 (Soil management), carrying out both technical studies and coordination labours, as well as the coordinator for the Germany demonstration (WP6). Also, ATB contributed relevant work to WP2 (Biomass requirements and specifications for the biomass in the whole value chain), WP3 (Analysis of current harvesting methods and adaptation to large scale logistics), WP4 (Management of storage) as well as to other workpackages such as WP8 (Task 8.1. Environmental assessments and Task 8.3. Assessment of social impact).

Contact ATB:

Dr. Jürgen Kern

Dr. Sonja Germer

EuroPruning is a collaborative project co-financed by the European Union under the Seventh Framework Programme (FP7), being the total EU contribution of 3,4 Mio Euros (the total budget of the project amounts to 4,6 Mio Euros.

Background

The European Union currently creates more than 25 million tonnes of agricultural wood prunings each year, but only a marginal percentage is used as solid biofuel. The EuroPruning project seekes to turn prunings into a valuable fuel source by developing solutions for their harvesting, transportation and storage to create growth in the European biofuels market. Biomass forms an important part of the European Union’s vision for sustainable energy. The main advantage of biomass is that it has widespread availability and is a local, clean and renewable energy resource that can create jobs, guarantee an energy supply and lead to a more diverse economy at the local level. Pruning wood by-products are an essentially unexploited biomass resource. New logistics need to be developed to promote the collection and use of prunings whilst ensuring the process is sustainable from economic, technical and environmental perspectives.