CEMA meets with EuroPruning to discuss ag machinery's role in biofuel production from wood prunings
Brussels, 10 October 2013 – The EuroPruning project has met with key stakeholders in Brussels to explore opportunities for co-operation in communicating and exploiting project results, with the aim of ensuring the extensive future use of agricultural prunings as an energy source.
EuroPruning will develop new machinery for harvesting and treating prunings from the field, provide solutions for cost-effective storage options, and develop a decision-support tool to improve logistics from farm to final user, bringing down costs for this underused biomass source.
Stakeholders from each stage of the EuroPruning value chain were present, from the European Farmers and Agri-cooperative Association (COPA-COGECA), European Agriculture Machinery Association (CEMA), European Logistics Association (ELA), European Biomass Association (AEBIOM), European Biomass Industry Association (EUBIA) and the Renewable Heating and Cooling Technology Platform.
Virginie Rimbert from European Commission DG Research and Innovation opened the meeting, setting out the importance of new value chains for expansion of biomass as an energy source. Project co-ordinator, the Research Centre for Energy Resources and Consumption (CIRCE), then outlined the aims of the project and its expected outputs, before handing over to Communication and Dissemination managers, Greenovate! Europe, to explore co-operation opportunities and establish connections for future activities.
The project and its stakeholders have agreed to work together over the course of the project to help EuroPruning to achieve commercialised replication of its results, to the advantage of the project partners, stakeholders and society at large.
Notes for the EuroPruning project – Branching out to new bioenergy supplies
The EuroPruning project launched in April 2013 and runs until July 2016. It is co-ordinated by CIRCE (Research Centre for Energy Resources and Consumption) and the project consortium contains 17 members from Spain, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Sweden and Belgium. The project website is www.EuroPruning.eu.
