Autun

• Bioenergy - Heating plant to the city of Autun
• We started to cooperate with an engineering company in Lyon
• Our partner was located in Belfort

User Generated

We have to be able to think about new avenues and their impacts: what will be the consequences of user-generated-participation

on the city.

Maybe there could be different physical spaces where people can drop out their ideas and contribute/participate in the creation of their city. These are things that should be further investigated.

France

Une campagne de l'AFII, faisant la promotion de la France comme terre d'innovation, historique et actuelle, tout un programme.

Bioenergy

• Rational Choice

As the world makes moves towards biofuels (= biomass fuels in this context), the source of the biological material is going to become important. The European Commission has published a green paper called "A European Strategy for Secure, Competitive and Sustainable Energy for Europe", which, in the view of the European Renewable Energy Industry is a missed opportunity for showing the way forward in Europe's energy policy and strategy.

• PRODUCT | Biomass fueled CHP is a proven concept; the 10 – 20 MW plant sizes for France / Europe are however new concepts and the plan to implementation is facing some barriers and uncertainties compared to Scandinavian countries where wood based bioenergy units have a long history.

• PRICE | The initial CHP investment is higher but ROI over lifetime should support the decision. The acceptance of a higher initial investment price demands strategic decision making and local political wisdom has to be a part of the decision making process.

• PROMOTION | Biomass fueled CHPs 10 – 20 MW as valuable community / district level investments are not well known outside the Scandinavian markets. Much more grassroots and selective local promotion is needed to advance the Public-Private-Community-District partnership.

• PLACE | Location, location, location is everything. A CHP (cogeneration heat and power) should be installed in a location where the Public-Private-Community-District initiative has the logistical, operational and supply chain actors participating. To succeed, a multidisciplinary local action group has to be arranged by someone who wants to lead the operation from start to finish. Such a team was in place when the Autun, France, BioGrate 10 MW project proceeded from idea to completion.

• POLITICS | The City / Community level decision makers have to be a natural part of the planning process and a project team. A CHP plant want be a strictly Business-to-Business sales and implementation project. A successful project requires long term cooperation of several parties. If the networking infrastructure isn’t in place, there will not be a successful project.