In the middle of the second period of the ENERGY BARGE project, it is time to give some first insight into what the project team has been working on up until now. The first brief newsflash deals with Work Package 3, which is all about exploring and mapping the Danube region’s biomass and bioenergy markets current state. It identifies potentials to firstly, increase the sustainable utilization of biobased energy and to secondly, using the capacities of inland waterway transport to shift bioenergy feedstock, intermediaries and products on the Danube in order to utilize it where it is most needed. As an effect, Danube ports shall become hubs for sustainable biomass transport and bioenergy production and utilizations. In order to achieve this, stakeholders from both complex supply chains and across all Danube countries need to be interlinked.

In Work Package 3’s first finalized activity, called “Overview of the bioenergy market and value chain situation”, three deliverables challenged the partners to look into the their national biomass and bioenergy landscapes on a macro-level, before the second activity looks more detailed into the state, needs and development options of suppliers, processors, traders and end users of biomass and bioenergy and national best practice cases for integrated bioenergy production.

Looking closely at market potentials

In Deliverable 1, the transnational market study compendium, the partners intensively screened their national markets for current bioenergy data, untapped potential to sustainably supply energy based on biomass and identified most promising biomass feedstock types, bioenergy products and deployment sectors. Additionally, an assessment of the suitability of feedstocks, intermediaries, products and residue material for inland waterway transport took place. Some of the main results include:

• Woody biomass is and will be the predominant national and transnational biomass segment both in terms of potential and in terms of actual current use;
• Especially the residue material from forestry and wood industry has a major unexploited potential in several countries, e.g. Germany, Austria, Hungary, Romania and Croatia;
• Agricultural residue materials, although reported as challenging regarding collection and transportation at times, show future potential that might also be economically viable given the right political and technological framework;
• In all covered countries, biobased residue material is the feedstock group most promising for future energetic purposes in the Danube region in line with the principle of sustainable potential;
• In addition, some countries also indicate significant potential for advanced technologies, especially second-generation, lignocellulosic and oil-based biofuels, e.g. Croatia, Germany, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria and Slovakia;
• Especially for the last mentioned point, potential for inland waterways to offer necessary logistical service is of significance due to the high volumes and the rather centralized production infrastructure. This accounts especially for the entire oil seed supply chain and the latter parts of the lignocellulosic biofuels supply chain (transport of products and residues).

In the two further Activity 1 deliverables, existing biomass feedstock flows between and within Danube countries were identified. The idea here is to firstly visualize existing flows for logistics providers and bioenergy producers and to secondly identify trends and options to better and more sustainably organize transport and logistics. Also, the national sustainability regulations for production, supply and usage of biomass for energy purposes were collected, compared and analysed towards formulating transnational recommendations for a harmonized biomass and bioenergy sustainability regime in the Danube region. All achieved results will now be included in an online tool, the so-called Danube Biomass and Bioenergy Atlas, which is dedicated to actors along the targeted supply chains. The tool will be online in the first half of 2018.