Joint Call 14 Biomass for heat in industrial

Deadline: Jun 8, 2021  
CALL EXPIRED

Summary

In this joint call, ERA-NET Bioenergy aims to fund innovative, transnational research, development and innovation (R&D&I) projects in the field of bioenergy.

Funding will be offered to excellent proposals that provide clear added value through cooperation of partners in at least two (preferably more) participating countries. Novelty beyond the state of the art in the bioenergy value chain addressed must be significant, and evidence of exploitation potential must be provided (e.g. by way of tangible industry commitment).

Public funding is available for this joint call from funding bodies in Austria, Germany, Poland and Switzerland.

1 Key call dates

This call is published on the webpage of ERA-NET Bioenergy www.eranetbioenergy.net and on the web pages of the participating funding agencies.

Call opens
20.10.2020

Partnering opportunity / Networking web meeting*
11.11.2020

Deadline for submitting pre-proposals
26.01.2021 (13:00 CET)

Deadline for submitting full proposals
08.06.2021 (13:00 CEST)

Communication of funding recommendation/decision to the applicants
30.09.2021

Expected project start
First quarter of 2022

* PARTNERING OPPORTUNITY * NETWORKING WEB MEETING *

On 11.11.2020 a networking web meeting will be organised to give researchers the chance to interlink with each other and enlarge consortia. To sign up for this, applicants need to express their interest by sending an email to b.vashev@fnr.de at the Call Secretariat until 06.11.2020.

For presenting concrete ideas and need of partners, three PPT slides per project including project idea, existing partners/experience and missing experiences / partner profiles must be sent to the above address at the Call Secretariat until 06.11.2020 as well.

A link to the web meeting will be sent to registered participants on 09.11.2020.

2 Background

The European Union (EU) is committed to combatting climate change and to increasing the security of its energy supply. Bioenergy has a key role to play in achieving both targets, and currently accounts for more than two thirds of total renewable energy in the EU.

ERA-NET Bioenergy is a network of national funding organisations which support bioenergy projects. The network started in October 2004 with founding members from Austria, Finland, Germany, The Netherlands, Sweden and United Kingdom and was funded by the European Commission (FP6). Since January 2011, ERA-NET Bioenergy is a self-sustained network with a clear focus on joint calls for R&D proposals. ERA-NET Bioenergy has so far implemented 13 joint calls and thus contributed to the funding of over 50 international R&D projects – the results can be found under www.eranetbioenergy.net. The calls of ERA-NET Bioenergy are focussed on medium-sized consortia (typically, two to eight partners) with excellent individual merits as well as complementarity.

The industry sector, like other sectors, is facing the decarbonisation challenge. Next to the fact to become more energy efficient, the industry has to get its processes less dependent on fossil energy. Biomass and (biogenic) waste fuels are well-placed to meet the temperature, pressure and quantity of heat and steam required by many industrial processes (e.g. cement industry already uses biomass waste as supplementary fuel). Bioenergy deployment is highest within industries that produce biomass wastes and residues as part of their operations, such as the pulp, paper and print industry.1 Consumption is less evident in other industries, e.g. iron and steel, where biomass wastes and residues are not produced and fuel supply chains need to be mobilised. However, there is still potential for new implementation pathways supporting decarbonisation of industry and demonstration of best practice examples. Furthermore, the linkage to circular economy especially in industry sectors has to be stressed more, e.g. by using biomass based waste as fuel or feedstock.

In the joint call “Development and improvement of biomass conversion technologies for the provisioning of heat for industrial processes”, ERA-NET Bioenergy aims to jointly fund innovative, transnational research, development and innovation (R&D&I) projects in the field of bioenergy primarily focussing on technology readiness levels in the range 2-7.

3 Scope of the joint call

The call “Development and improvement of biomass conversion technologies for the provisioning of heat for industrial processes” aims to support innovative, collaborative pan- European, R&D&I projects contributing to a sustainable provision of bioenergy heat.

1. Development of technically and economically feasible new decarbonisation technologies for the provision of heat based on agricultural and/or forestry biomass. The solutions shall be mainly based on agricultural and/or forestry biomass including residues, but could also utilize other biogenic energy carriers.

2. Adaption and/or modification of existing technical solutions for the production of heat based on agricultural and/or forestry biomass for industrial processes. Such projects shall encompass significant R&D work.

An economical assessment of the envisioned solutions must be integrated into each project.

Stand-alone projects regarding these topics without a major technical R&D&I part focussing on scope 1 or 2 are not eligible for funding.

For some countries added value in rural areas is of interest – please check the national annexes!

Further, all proposed projects should foresee to demonstrate that the greenhouse gas emissions of a modified production chain improve compared to the conventional route.

Projects can only be considered for funding if a substantial part of the added value is derived from thermal energy production.

Please note that Germany has specific requirements concerning the bioenergy share on the added value. For detailed information please check the national annexes.

The public funding for this call comes from the participating national R&D funding programmes and differs from country to country – please see the National Annexes (Annex II).

All proposals must be put in context of the political/legal framework, available biomass raw materials, and techno-economic as well as socio-economic market situation in the countries in which the project work will be carried out.

Funding is available only for innovative, application oriented research and development projects within the technology readiness levels range 2-7. A higher TRL than the initial must be achieved at the end of the funded project. This means that a significant improvement beyond the state of the art is an absolute pre-requisite. However please note that the maximal TRL increase should not exceed 2 TRL (e.g. at the beginning of the project TRL 4 up to TRL 6 at the end of the project). Further, please be aware that not all funding organisations cover the whole TRL above, please check table “SUMMARY OF FUNDING OPTIONS / RESTRICTIONS” on page 6 for more details.

4 Guidelines for applicants

4.1 Consortia

Proposals are invited from transnational consortia which include large companies, SMEs, research groups/organisations and/or stakeholder associations, depending on national funding rules.

Projects must have at least 2 independent partners applying for funding from two different countries with funding agencies participating in the call, with the project’s outputs and benefits shared between all parties.

The number of partners per project is not limited, but the manageability of the consortium must be demonstrated.

As projects are expected to be market-oriented, it is strongly recommended that one or more industrial partners participate in the consortium. If industry participation is not feasible due to the scope/outlay of the envisaged work, the reasons for this decision should be explained in the proposal. Note that detailed exploitation and dissemination plans are an important feature of every proposal!

Proposals must demonstrate added value from the international cooperation, in comparison to national projects. This should be evident in the layout and execution of the work packages. The work plan must show real cooperation between the partners. Project outputs are expected to provide benefits to all partner countries. Consortia also need to be balanced between countries both in terms of number of partners and distribution of budget; such that all project partners contribute to and benefit from an equitable and balanced cooperation. To address this, the contribution of one country to the collaborative project must not exceed 70% of the total costs for project implementation.

Partners from countries which are not participating in the call are also encouraged to join a consortium (as additional partners; the minimum number of two partners from countries participating in this call remains). These so-called “third country” partners must finance their activities from other sources, as the ERA-Net Bioenergy members will not provide such funds, and projects must ensure that the exploitation of results focuses on the ERA-NET Bioenergy partner countries.

4.2 Funding arrangements

The maximum project duration will be three (3) years. Projects are expected to start in early 2022, and the start and end date should be the same for all partners in a consortium.

Research will be funded from national sources, i.e. each participating national or regional funding agency funds their respective national research partners in a particular project consortium. The total funding as well as the funding available in each country is limited. For details please contact your national funding agency. Additional co-financing from stakeholders (own contributions) may be expected following national rules for R&D funding.

Funding is always subject to national rules (see Annex II).

If a proposal is selected for funding, the partners are required to sign a consortium agreement which specifies Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) and other issues regarding responsibilities within the project and exploitation of results.

The consortium agreement must be signed before the first payment can be made.

4.3 Submission of proposals

Pre-proposal:

•   The pre-proposal consists of one common document following the structure of the template available from 20 October 2020 on www.eranetbioenergy.net.

•   Pre-proposals must be received via e-mail by the central Call Secretariat at the Agency for Renewable Resources, Germany (FNR) eranetbioenergy@fnr.de by 26th January 2021, 13:00 CET at the latest.

Full proposal:

It is the responsibility of each applicant to ensure their documents are submitted on time. In case of late submission (after 13:00 CET) the proposal will not be taken into account in order to ensure the fairness towards other applicants.

In case you do not get a confirmation that your proposal was received, you should immediately contact Boris Vashev (b.vashev@fnr.de) at the Call Secretariat!

• only consortia whose pre-proposals pass the first evaluation stage will be invited to submit full proposals.

These full proposals should follow the structure of the template which will be available on the ERA-NET Bioenergy website after pre-proposal evaluation.

The deadline for submitting full proposals is 8th June 2021, 13:00 CEST.

Some national funding bodies may also require specific national documents (application forms or similar) from “their” applicants at this stage. Such national documents are NOT submitted centrally, but directly to the relevant ministry or agency. Please consult the relevant National Annexes at the end of this document for further details.

Evaluation of proposals

Pre-proposals will be evaluated by the national funding agencies against the following criteria:

•   Contribution to the goals of the call

•   Fit to national funding programmes

•   Technical and scientific quality; innovation

•   Quality of the consortium

•   Project Management

The full criteria for full proposals can be found under Annex I.

Evaluation of full proposals will be performed by an international expert panel, selected by the funding organisations involved in the call. The expert panel will provide recommendations for funding. The final decisions will be taken by the ERA-NET Bioenergy partners and will be communicated on 30.09.2021.

4.5 Project monitoring and expected deliverables

In addition to the standard requirements of your funding agency, the funders participating in this call require the following:

1. Participation in and presentation in the final ERA-NET status seminar (could be within the frame of an international conference)

2. The completion of one common interim survey asking in brief for proceedings, possible problems, extensions etc. at about half of the project duration.

3. A common Final Report (written in English), describing the main activities and outcomes of the work including an exploitation plan stating how the results of the project is requested and will be published in a “joint call brochure” and on the ERA-NET Bioenergy website after the end of the projects. Detailed requirements for this report will be distributed to successful applicants once the projects have started. National guidelines have to be followed as well.

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