Bioenergy: Designing a Strategy
Who is involved?
Designing a bioenergy-strategy is a project in which many different stakeholders have to be included in order to succeed. The process of inclusion is optimally divided into different steps: Identifying Stakeholders, Establishing Bioenergy Task Force, Convening a Stakeholder Forum, Mobilizing Stakeholders and Monitoring Stakeholder Participation. Important stakeholders can be trade groups, NGO`s or small business owners. Possible roles and responsibilities of a bioenergy task force could be communication with high level officials, coordinating process and inputs to strategy formulation and resolving conflicts.
Why should actors pursue a bioenergy strategy?
Articulating objectives will help potential users to end up with priorities when considering whether or not to use bioenergy. Objectives of using bioenergy could be: Rural Development, that is the creation of income through generating options and stimulating rural economies. Or Reducing Green House Gas Emissions through advancing climate-compatible growth. After identifying cross sector linkages and evaluating relevant political and economic relations, priorities can be settled: One can determine an Energy Mix, legislative actions and an appropriate climate portfolio.
Which sectors demand bioenergy?
Setting priorities for bioenergy in relation to the policy objectives has some immediate implications for which demand sectors, applications and fuels will be emphasized. It is therefore important to evaluate energy demand across the different sectors and to consider differences and relationships across the demand sectors and applications or end-users.
What bioenergy feedstocks and technologies should be pursued to meet national objectives?
After evaluating the different sectors, the next step is to determine what feedstocks and technologies should be pursued to meet the priorities in a cost-effective and sustainable way. This determination process can be broken down into six steps: Identifying feedstock options, Evaluating Technical Capacity, Assessing Conversion Platforms, Inclusion of pre- and post-processing, transport and distribution infrastructure requirements, end-uses and energy services.
Where can bioenergy be geographically implemented?
A careful assessment of the availability and suitability of land resources is a key element in the bioenergy strategic process: availability relates to existing uses and preferences, whereas suitability refers to climatic biophysical and climatic properties to support growth of particular feedstocks. The land assessment can be the most complicated and time-consuming part of the whole bioenergetic process. In order to place bioenergy within the context of the many other demands on land resources, a detailed geographical mapping exercise will often be needed to support the bioenergy strategy.
How can the best opportunities for smallholders and land owners be created?
In bioenergy planning, whether it is on the strategy or project level, various institutions are involved that formulate the ownership/contractual options for smallholders. Institutions and systems of land ownership and land tenure are important to recognize in a given country in order to create the best opportunities for smallholders and land owners involved in bioenergy, for example with cultivation. This section reviews the critical elements in this discussion.
