Promoting biomass powered installations in Europe
In a period of financial constraints and uncertain investors, a new initiative is attempting to inject a generous dose of optimism in the European biomass sector by gathering together companies and organisations in a user-friendly online map with a Wikipedia-approach model.
The idea of the repowermap.org is to show examples of renewable energy use and energy efficiency in each Europen area, giving detailed technical information and promoting companies involved in planning, manufacturing and running biomass fuelled installations.
While showing the spread of renewable energy across Europe, the initiative connects people with the renewable energy sources in their neighbourhood, promotes information exchange and the spread of innovative technologies at a local level and across borders.
The bioenergy industry is taking part to the initiative. Biomass plants, biogas installation, pellet boilers and waste-to-energy plant can be added to the map together with their caracteristics and contacts of planners and installers.
Adding examples to the map is easy. The map can be viewed at repowermap.org and can also be integrated into other websites and used as a free tool to promote the work of specific organisations or companies. Maps showing a specific area, technology or installer can be created, helping organisations to inform the public or other relevant stakeholders about what they do and what is available nearby.
The interactive map is being developed jointly by a network of organisations (including the European Biomass Industry Association), local and regional authorities, companies and other energy actors with support from Intelligent Energy Europe.
The initiative is currently focusing on 11 European countries: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Liechtenstein, Slovakia and Poland. In total, the map will have integrated 40,000 real world examples by 2014, and everyone is invited to take part in reaching this number.
To add examples to the map, or to find out more about integrating the map in your website, visit repowermap.org
