A new regional cooperation platform has been launched to strengthen wood energy's role across Europe, bringing together regions that view sustainable biomass as central to the continent's energy security, climate and resilience. The Wood Energy Regions Network (WERN), launched in Brussels on 9 September, was established by Bavaria, Styria, Castilla-La Mancha and Castilla y León.
The platform aims to share experience, strengthen cooperation and ensure regional realities inform the European discussion on energy transition.
In practice, wood energy's contribution to Europe varies dramatically by region. In Bavaria, wood heats around 2 million homes or almost one fourth of households; in Styria, where forests cover 62 per cent of the territory, wood already provides 22 per cent of energy needs; Castilla y León has around 5 million hectares of forest and produces roughly one third of Spain's pellets; while Castilla-La Mancha stressed the importance of active forest management in regions exposed to wildfire risk.
Tobias Gotthardt, Vice Minister at the Bavarian Ministry of Economic Affairs, Regional Development and Energy, said wood energy played an indispensable role in Bavaria's heat and energy transition.
"Energy wood is available locally and creates added value in our regions. We want to share these strengths with our European partners in the EU and expand it," he said.
Jorge Llorente Cachorro, Deputy Regional Minister for Environment and Energy in Castilla y León, stressed that forest biomass should not be viewed as an end in itself, but as a tool for forest management with benefits for rural development, wildfire prevention and European energy security.
An expert discussion at the launch highlighted a key barrier to expansion: excessive bureaucracy at European level. Alexander Bernhuber MEP, Eric van den Heuvel of IEA Bioenergy, Marlene Mortler of the German Biomass Association, and Andreas Steinegger of the Styrian Chamber of Agriculture all emphasised that local authorities and economic actors should be trusted to make the most of their regional resources.
"Regions demonstrate every day the contribution wood energy makes to climate action, the heating transition, security of supply and regional value creation," Mortler said.
Christoph Pfemeter, President of Bioenergy Europe, noted that whilst bioenergy appeared to play a modest role in Europe's overall energy mix, regional differences could be substantial—in some areas bioenergy already met up to one third of energy needs.
European policy, he argued, should recognise these realities and ensure bioenergy's contribution was properly reflected in the energy transition.
