Biogas is driving regional growth in East Central Sweden

Along with existing clusters in innovation and enterprise InfraBiogas Öst is highlighting biogas as a motor for regional growth and employment. The project is also going to work for increased production and highlight the handling of the digestate.

Just less than six months after the project start, work in InfraBiogas Öst is running according to plan. So far 55 meetings have been held with various actors and according to Tomas Wadström, the project manager, the project has reached the half-way stage in charting substrates and the conditions for biogas production in East Central Sweden.

Charting the biogas chain

“To get an overall picture we are gathering information about the number of employees and man-hours in the whole biogas chain. In addition, we are collecting data about the quantity of digestates from each plant, what nutrients they contain and what the sales opportunities are.

In autumn 2010 external assistance is being procured both for a web-based application in which all results will be presented and communicated and for a survey of the advantages and disadvantages of different distribution forms for a higher volume of biogas."

The project has received SEK 1.3 million from the European Regional Development Fund but Tomas Wadström also hopes to strengthen the project through cooperation with the Baltic Biogas Bus, an EU project.

In addition to surveying and building support for the conditions for biogas, the project also stimulates collaboration between the business sector, the public sector and universities and other higher education institutions. Key actors in this work are central actors in cleantech and business hubs as well as existing clusters that are already working on developing regional employment and enterprise.
 

Biogas council

“This autumn we are holding three major seminars: one on waste with all the municipalities in Stockholm County; one in Uppsala on how environmental technology meets venture capital; and a Biogas Council in Stockholm, on the theme of biogas infrastructure, for the region's biogas actors."

One objective in the project is four new posts, the first of which went through in autumn 2010.

“A student who had been supervised in the project got a job at AGA AB to work on distribution questions," says Tomas Wadström, who notes that this is wholly in line with the aim of the project.

The project has no measurable targets for gender equality, integration and diversity but does have a clear ambition to improve the environment. One target, which Biogas Öst is also working for, is to make a contribution to the upgrade of 10 per cent of vehicle fuel to biogas by 2020. Other targets are to increase the planned production of biogas in the region by 400 per cent and to contribute to more filling stations and a secure gas supply to them.

Read the article in swedish