Aim of the call

The purpose of this call is to generate joint European industrially relevant research and development activities within ERA-NET BIOENERGY. This call builds on the experience that was gained in the first Joint call on Small Scale Combustion of wood.

This call provides new opportunities for industries and researchers to take part in multilateral cooperation in the field of gasification of biomass for energetic use and to enhance the quality of the conducted research. Projects are expected to provide knowledge through research in order to develop solutions which are economically competitive, reliable and environmentally friendly.

Given the limited budget and also the content of the existing FP7 call from the European Commission one focal area was selected for the joint call in the whole chain of biomass gasification. Gas treatment and cleaning was selected as the most needed area. The joint call will open on 25^th May 2007 and will be closed on 30^th August 2007.

This call will be published on the ERA-NET BIOENERGY web page and on the web pages of the national programmes. See: www.eranetbioenergy.net

Background

This is a joint call by some of the ERA-NET BIOENERGY partners. ERA-NET-BIOENERGY is a network of national R&D programmes focusing on bioenergy. The network includes funding organisations from Austria, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden and the United Kingdom. Further calls are intended to be launched within the ERA-NET BIOENERGY project. The ERA-NET BIOENERGY project has a duration of 4 years and ends September 2008. The funding agencies organising this joint call will be aiming to investigate best practises for arrangement of joint calls and subsequent evaluation of the resulting projects. We will also be aiming to provide a platform for the exchange of information and knowledge related to biomass gasification research in different countries through workshops and other dissemination activities.

The European Commission actively supports the use of biomass for energy as part of the EU aim is to increase the use of renewable energy and to avoid an increase of CO₂ concentration in the atmosphere. The European Union and its Member States recently decided to set a target of 20% CO-reduction and the implementation of 20% Renewable Energy by the year 2020. Biomass and the use of gasification technology is needed to realise this goal, especially in liquid biofuel applications.

Biomass Gasification Research is very diverse and its applications can be seen in different areas. However the longterm perspective in the market is seen as promising. Gasification offers the possibility of higher efficiencies, both for power production and for production of liquid biofuels.

The Gasification chain: Different kinds of resources can be gasified. Dried wood chips, wood residues, energy crops, agricultural residues or wastes can be used in a set of possible gasifiers. These different gasifiers (Entrained Flow, Circulating Fluidised Bed, etc.) all have their own characteristics and result in a specific quality of producer gas. This producer gas needs treatment and cleaning to make it usable for different kind of applications. Through cleaning and treatment, it can either be used to burn and produce power, or used to produce a syngas, that can be upgraded to methanol or Fischer Tropsch diesel.

The required research covers product gas cleaning, gas conditioning and gas conversion or utilisation. A lot of accompanying research is needed to tackle specific problems; e.g. gas composition measurement, fouling and scaling, cooling problems, catalysts (production, utilisation or degradation), etc.

Joint call topic

Research and Development for innovative and economically competitive gas treatment systems to improve the quality and composition of product gas from biomass gasifiers for energetic purposes (CHP, fuels, SNG,..).

The topic for the joint call is restricted to Gas Cleaning and Gas Treatment. The call is open for the development of a range of different technologies to clean and treat the different produced gases from gasifiers, and enable the utilisation in all different applications.

Consortium

Proposals are invited from companies and/or research organisations depending on national funding conditions. [Be aware that national criteria apply!]. Proposals must include partners from at least two of the countries involved in the call. There should be at least one industrial partner in the consortium that is able to implement the developed technological and scientific know-how to reach the goal of the call. Research project outputs are expected to provide benefits to all partner countries.

The project partners are required to sign a consortium agreement in order to agree on Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) and other relevant issues dealing with responsibilities within the project and exploitation of results. This must be signed before the first payment can be made.

Funding arrangements

Research will be funded from national sources and will be subject to their national funding rules. Each participating funding agency has made separate arrangements for funding the national participants. The public funding available for the individual projects funded in the frame of this call follows the national rules. Additional co-financing from stakeholders is expected following national and European rules for R&D funding. The total funding budget is limited. For details please contact your national agency or see the country information on the website www.eranetbioenergy.net.

Project duration

Projects are expected to start between March 2008 and June 2008 and must be completed by 31^st December 2009.

Deadline for Submission

Proposals must be submitted to your participating national funding agency by 30^th August 2007.

Structure of Submission

The documentation you have to submit consists of two parts.

1. 1.

   A Common proposal written in English which contains all relevant information about the joint project. This will be evaluated as one entity by an international jury and will form the basis for the funding decision.

2. 2.

   A standard application form from your funding agency describing the involvement and funding requirements of each national proposer (see National Guidelines section for details of these requirements on www.eranetbioenergy.net). The information within this document serve as a national project proposal and should be extracted from the Common proposal as these documents will not be seen by the international jury.

These documents should be submitted by each project partner to their participating national funding agency (see list of national contacts below).

The Common Proposal document should be structured as follows:

1. 1.

   Project Title (max. 150 characters).

2. 2.

   Duration in months (Considering that project work must be completed by 31^st December 2009).

3. 3.

   Applicant details (institution, name of coordinator of the project, name of contact person, contact information).

4. 4.

   Financial summary table – totals only, (in €) for overall costs, costs per partner, required national funding per partner.

5. 5.

   Executive summary (300 words).

6. 6.

   Detailed description of consortium (role of each partner organisation and stakeholders involved).

7. 7.

   Detailed description of project (objectives, materials and methods, state of the art and innovative contribution of the project, work packages) (max. 5 pages).

8. 8.

   Project planning and management, this section should include a graphical work plan), deliverables, milestones, work packages (i.e. what is done by whom?) together with details of assigned resources/man-hours and associated budgets (max. 10 pages).

9. 9.

   Project outcomes (implementation and exploitation plan, implementation should involve all participating countries) (max. 3 pages).

10. 10.

    Background and competences of participating organisations and individuals (max. 1 page per partner organisation plus ½ page per key person involved).

The proposal should be written using the Times New Roman font with a minimum acceptable font size of 10.

Proposal evaluation

The proposals will be evaluated by an international evaluation jury, selected by the funding organisations involved in the call. The international evaluation jury will provide recommendations for funding. The final decisions will be made by the ERA-NET BIOENERGY partners.

The evaluation meeting will take place during September 2007 and the funding decisions will be communicated by the end of December 2007.

The evaluation criteria are:

1. –

   fit to call

2. –

   technological and scientific quality of R&D (including why specifically the international cooperation improves the quality of the results)

3. –

   implementation and exploitation of results

4. –

   resources available for the project, including quality of project management and coordination.

5. –

   promoting cooperation within the ERA-Net Bioenergy framework.

Beyond these instructions above, your participating national funding agency’s guidelines should be followed. If you intend to participate in this call please contact your national contact person.

Project Monitoring and Expected Deliverables

In addition to the standard requirements of your funding agency we will require the following:

1. 1.

   Participation and presentation of Mid-term progress at a joint ERA-NET workshop.

2. 2.

   A common Final Report (written in English) describing the activities and outcomes of the work. The report should consist of a public summary and the rest will be treated confidential. National guidelines have to be followed as well. Detailed requirements for this report will be distributed to successful applicants once the projects have started.