The long term goal of DANUBENERGY is, in short, to develop a sustainable production and consumption alternative to traditional biomass energy technology chains.

Renewable Energy Sources (RES) are seen as key to mitigating greenhouse gas-emissions and substitute fossil fuels. The promotion of RES has a high priority in the energy policy strategies of the EU.

Among the different RES, biomass is of crucial importance for the future energy supply in Central Europe (CE). Not only because it already has the highest share of all RES, but also due to its vast potential and the fact that it can be used in all energy sectors: for heat and electricity or combined heat and power generation as well as for the production of transport fuel.

Over time, the scale at which energy from biomass is being used in CE has increased considerably.

So far, national policy programs proved to be of vital importance for the success of the development of bioenergy from biomass, which led to very specific technological choices in various countries (e.g. 30 % for sole heat generation of total use of biomass in Germany to 80 % of total in PL and HU).

Even though heat generation from biomass is the oldest (and often most competitive) utilisation path, EU directives as well as national support schemes were focused on the electricity and transport sector in recent years. The following investment boom and the current economic pressure on many biomass industry applications calls into question the long-term sustainability of traditional approaches in biomass technology chains.

Compared with non-renewable energy carriers such as gas or coal, renewable energy from biomass production systems are more closely connected to complex and variable natural systems.