Consortia of 13 organizations from Europe and emerging/developing countries involved
As part of the EU’s Horizon 2020 Societal Challenge ‘Secure, clean and efficient energy’, under the call ‘Market Uptake Support’; the Digital Global Biogas Cooperation (DiBiCoo) project held its kick-off meeting in Brussels, on October 30 & 31, 2019; in the presence of representatives from 13 participating organizations across four continents. The overall objective of the project is to support the European biogas/biomethane industry by preparing markets for the export of sustainable biogas/biomethane technologies from Europe to developing and emerging countries. The project will help mitigate GHG emissions and increase the share of global renewable energy generation. The project also contributes to the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDG 7) for ‘Affordable and clean energy”, among others.
DiBiCoo aims to mutually benefit importing and exporting countries through facilitating dialogue between European biogas industries and biogas stakeholders or developers from emerging and developing markets. The consortia works to advance knowledge transfer and experience sharing to improve local policies that allow increased market uptake by target countries. As part of the deliverables, DiBiCoo will identify five demo cases up to investment stages in each of the 5 importing countries. Facilitated through a digital match-making platform and classical capacity development mechanisms for improved networking, information sharing, and technical/financial competences.
During the kick-off meeting, representatives of the consortia presented their respective work packages and discussed implementation plans with the project officer of the EU, as well as the expected deliverables for the 33 months project timeline.
The target importing emerging and developing countries and their respective partner institutions are Argentina (Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria), Ethiopia (Iceaddis IT Consultancy PLC),
Ghana (Institute for Sustainable Energy and Environmental Solutions), Indonesia (Inisiasi Pengkajian Resiliensi – Resilience Development Initiative), and South Africa (GreenCape and Selectra CC). These countries have been selected because of the high market potential for biogas projects, along with favorable regulatory environment and support schemes. The European partner countries involve Germany (WIP Renewable Energies GmbH & Co. KG and the Fachverband Biogas – German Biogas Association), Austria (ARGE Kompost & Biogas – Austrian Compost and Biogas Association and the Austrian Energy Agency), Belgium (European Biogas Association); with the technical support from the Latvia Life Science University. The project with a budget of 3 Million Euros is implemented by the consortia and coordinated by the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH. EUs Innovation and Networks Executive Agency (INEA) oversees the project on behalf of the European Commission.