03 Jun 2015

BIOPLAT, boosting innovation in biomass and bioenergy in Spain

BIOPLAT publishes its most noteworthy actuations of 2014, directed to maximize biomass use and to increase the implementation of all the aplications of the bioenergy in Spain

BIOPLAT, the Spanish Biomass Technology Platform, was funded in 2006 como as a scientific-technic sectorial coordination group, composed by all the biomass stakeholders in Spain. Since its constitution, the more than 250 entities which form BIOPLAT, lidered by the industry, have ellaborated sundry technological position documents in which the sector is analyzed, as well as the objetives for 2020 and 2030 are defined, together with the implementation strategy to reach them.

With the aim to get the Spanish society closer to biomass and all its posibilities, BIOPLAT has published an animated video about bioenergy which has been already played more than 35,000 times. In the video the different types of biomass are showed (agricultural, forestry, farm, industrial biomass and that which comes from municipal solid waste), which exists in Spain in a great amount (Spain is the third European country in biomass potential), the transformation processes into heat, electricity of biofuels for transport, as well as the socioeconomic and environmental benefit that implies the production of bioenergy from biomass to hte Spanish society.

At national level, BIOPLAT has closely colaborated with the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness and with the Centre for the Development of Industrial Technology in the determination of strategic lines for the biomass sector, as well as in the dissemination of R&D support tools in order to boost the growth of the Spanish industry. Apart from this, BIOPLAT has been working in the definition of the Spanish strategy about Smart Cities, where bioenergy must play -no doubt- an important role.

At European level, BIOPLAT keeps on rowing in the direction that the European Strategy on Bioeconomy says, in whcih bioenergy has a key role, as it is capable of delivering sustainable, competitive and secure energy, using indigenous renewable sources like biomass. Moreover, the Platform has worked in the definition of the Spanish priorities in the European Innovation Partnership for Agricultural Productivity and Sustainability, as well as for the interests of the bioenergy sector to be considered in the main European R&D finantial programs: Horizon 2020 and the Public-Private Partnership on Bio-based Industries.

All the BIOPLAT performances aim to show the added value which this sector is capable of provide, in the environmental sector (as it has an enormous fire, emission and waste abandonment avoidance) and in the socioeconomic scope (for its ability to create and mantain jobs in the supply chain of biomass, in the rural areas, where it is more needed.