Competition bioenergy regions

Logo bioenergy regions

The Bioenergy Regions competition is an initiative of the Federal Ministry for Food, Agriculture and Consumer Protection (BMELV). The aim is to promote networks and innovative concepts that use the development opportunities of bioenergy for themselves. The campaign is intended to increase regional added value and create jobs. With the expansion of bioenergy, the Federal Government not only wants to achieve its climate protection goals, but also to exploit the potential of the domestic energy source biomass for the economy and counteract demographic change in rural areas.

Starting position

The federal government is endeavoring to significantly increase the share of renewable energies in Germany's energy supply in the long term. For this purpose, concrete goals for the expansion of the use of renewable energies were formulated for the first time in 2007. The Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture (BMEL) has been supporting this development with the Bioenergy Regions projects since 2009. Its aim is to create long-term structures for the expansion of bioenergy through the development of networks and targeted public relations work and in this way to generate the necessary investments on site and thus to promote the expansion of rural areas with the help of bioenergy. The contribution to climate protection and the price-stable supply of domestic energy are further goals of the measure. The decisive criterion is that bioenergy generation and use are sustainable and that the available resources are used efficiently. This creates opportunities, especially for rural areas: jobs, climate-friendly and stable energy supply, more added value and thus future prospects.

Bioenergy regions

The BMEL funds structures for the generation and use of bioenergy in so-called bioenergy regions. While in the first phase from 2009–2012 they mainly built up networks and laid the foundations for bioenergy generation and use, in the second phase from 2012 to 2015 they concentrate on the targeted increase in regional added value through bioenergy, on increasing efficiency and Optimization of the material flows as well as the transfer of experience to partner regions. The bioenergy regions are now working together with so-called twin regions and in this way provide a targeted transfer of knowledge. The aim of the funding is to establish functioning networks. They are given a central role in the regional strategy and contribute to the valorisation of the existing biomass potential. The priority is a sustainable expansion that also leads to new jobs in the region. Each bioenergy region works on the basis of a regional development concept (REK), which was updated for the second funding phase and focused on the new funding topics. The office at the Agency for Renewable Raw Materials eV (FNR) supports the regions during the entire process.

Scientific accompanying research

The development of the bioenergy regions is scientifically monitored: The scope of consideration ranges from the implementation of regional development concepts to the evaluation and processing of relevant experiences in the bioenergy sector to the analysis of the funding instrument itself. In order to comprehensively grasp the complex regional processes, several studies are carried out on different subject areas. In the politico-social part it goes z. B. the analysis of regional networks, the organization of knowledge transfer on site or success factors for more regional added value. Another working group examines technical-economic aspects. The focus here is primarily on the development of the bioenergy situation in the individual regions, the recording of regional bioenergy potentials or measures for the efficient use of raw materials. In a third project, examples of value creation and employment effects - key arguments for the use of bioenergy - are examined in detail in three regions. The following institutions are responsible for the accompanying scientific research:

Investigation of the socio-political development and control processes, regional development Implementation by the project community: nova-Institut GmbH www.nova-institut.de Responsible for the project: Dirk Schubert

SPRINT GbR www.sprintconsult.de Responsible for the project: Dr. Sebastian Elbe

Investigation of the technical and economic aspects of the German Biomass Research Center (DBFZ) www.dbfz.de Project team: Dr. Daniela Thrän, Sebastian Bohnet and Falko Haak

Determination of the added value and employment effects in three selected bioenergy regions Institute for Ecological Economic Research GmbH (IÖW) www.ioew.de Project team: Katharina Heinbach, Johannes Rupp

Only in the first funding phase 2009–2012: Development of bioenergy regions against the background of demographic development Implementation by the project group: Institute for Sustainable Economic Development - INW www.inw-berlin.de Project manager: Jan Schlaffke

Berlin Institute for Population and Development www.berlin-institut.org Responsible for the project: Jochen Corthier

25 bioenergy regions in Germany

• Bioenergy region Lake Constance (Baden-Württemberg)
• Bioenergy region Hohenlohe-Odenwald-Tauber (Baden-Württemberg)
• Bioenergy region Achental (Bavaria)
• Bioenergy region Straubing-Bogen (Bavaria)
• Bioenergy region Bayreuth (Bavaria)
• Bioenergy region Oberland (Bavaria)
• Bioenergy region Märkisch-Oderland (Brandenburg)
• Ludwigsfelde region (Brandenburg)
• Bioenergy region Hersfeld-Rotenburg / Schwalm-Eder - natural power region (Hesse)
• Bioenergy region Central Hesse (Hesse)
• "Naturally Rügen" - full of energy (Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania)
• "Mecklenburg Lake District" region (Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania)
• Bioenergy region Südoldenburg (Lower Saxony)
• Wendland-Elbetal bioenergy region (Lower Saxony)
• Bioenergy region Weserbergland plus (Lower Saxony)
• Bioenergy region Kulturland Kreis Höxter (North Rhine-Westphalia)
• BioEnergieDialog Oberberg RheinErft Westerwald-Sieg (North Rhine-Westphalia)
• Bioenergy region Eifel (Koop.NRW / RLP) (North Rhine-Westphalia, Rhineland-Palatinate)
• District of Cochem-Zell (Rhineland-Palatinate)
• Saxon Switzerland-Eastern Ore Mountains region (Saxony)
• Bioenergy region Altmark (Saxony-Anhalt)
• AktivRegion Nordfriesland Nord (Schleswig-Holstein)
• Bioenergy region Burg - St. Michaelisdonn (Schleswig-Holstein)
• Bioenergy region Jena-Saale-Holzland (Thuringia)
• Bioenergy region Thuringian Vogtland (Thuringia)

Web links

• Fachagentur Nachwachsende Rohstoffe e. V.
• Literature database on bioenergy
• Information on bioenergy villages
• Advising the FNR on bioenergy
• Advising the FNR on bio-fuels
• Information from the FNR about the BTL procedure
• Information from the FNR on energy crops
• Information from the FNR on biomaterials
• Information from the FNR on bio-lubricants
• Information from the FNR on building materials made from renewable raw materials
• Traveling exhibition building and living with renewable raw materials
• FNR children's website

Individual evidence

1. ↑ bioenergy region lake constance
2. ↑ bioenergy region hot
3. ↑ biomassehof-achental
4. ↑ bioenergie.straubing-bogen
5. ↑ region-bayreuth / Bioenergieregion.aspx
6. ↑ energy transition Oberland
7. ↑ [1]
8. ↑ bioenergy region ludwigsfelde
9. ↑ natural power region
10. ↑ bioenergie-region-Mittelhessen ( memento of the original from October 1, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
11. ↑ rest-full-of-energy
12. ↑ lake plate bioenergy
13. ↑ bioenergie-suedoldenburg
14. ↑ bioenergy-wendland-elbetal
15. ↑ bioenergy-weserbergland-plus
16. ↑ bioenergieregion.kreis-hoexter
17. ↑ bioenergy dialogue-rheinland
18. ↑ bioenergy eifel
19. ↑ bioenergy region-cochem-zell
20. ↑ landscape-future ( memento of the original from July 22nd, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
21. ↑ altmark
22. ↑ aktivregion-nf-nord
23. ↑ energieregion-st-michaelisdonn
24. ↑ bioenergy region
25. ↑ bioenergieregion-thüringer-vogtland ( Memento of the original from December 18, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.