International cooperation with Canada on advanced biofuels and bioenergy

Proposals will aim at international cooperation with Canada for fostering the deployment of advanced biofuels and bioenergy while substantially decreasing the costs of the feedstock supply or the conversion process.

Proposals should address at least one of the following issues:

• Development of the full supply chain of biomass-to-bioenergy applications including intermediate bioenergy carriers, advanced biofuels, heat and power generation. Sustainable biomass production and collection strategies that facilitate sustainable bioenergy production and decrease feedstock supply costs will be included. All types of non-food/feed biomass including forestry, agricultural and their residues, organic fractions of municipal and industrial wastes can be targeted.
• Thermochemical, biochemical and chemical processing of sustainable biomass to advanced biofuels focusing on the pre-treatment and the conversion process and in particular on reducing the respective marginal cost.

Proposals are expected to bring the technology from TRL 3 to TRL 5 (please see part G of the General Annexes).

The Commission considers that proposals requesting a contribution from the EU of between EUR 3 to 5 million would allow this challenge to be addressed appropriately. Nonetheless, this does not preclude submission and selection of proposals requesting other amounts.

The optimisation of advanced biomass supply chains and overcoming specific conversion technology barriers are needed to improve the market up-take of sustainable advanced biofuels and bioenergy and accelerate their deployment for replacing the use of fossil fuels in the transport, power and heating sectors. International collaboration is mutually beneficial in strategic areas where knowledge can be exchanged and Europe can obtain leadership together with its international partners.

In line with the strategy for EU international cooperation in research and innovation (COM(2012)497), actions will contribute to the Mission Innovation Challenge 4[[http://mission-innovation.net/our-work/innovation-challenges/sustainable-biofuels-challenge/]].

It is expected that the exchange of knowledge through the targeted research activities with Canada will progress the technology state-of-the-art, strengthen the European and Canadian technology base and accelerate the development of sustainable fuels to replace the fossil fuel alternatives. At the same time, it is expected that the development of secure, long‐term supply of sustainable feedstock and/or the technology advances will also significantly contribute to increase the viability of advanced biofuels and bioenergy in the EU and Canada.