Creation of Swiss competence centre for research on biomass-based energy production

How can wood and other parts of the biomass contribute to energy provision and to the energy transition in Switzerland? This question will inform the work of the new inter-university competence centre BIOSWEET and its industrial partners. Work will get under way in 2014.

The new network, launched under the acronym BIOSWEET (BIOmass for SWiss Energy FuturE),  is one of the Swiss Competence Centres for Energy Research (SCCERs) recently approved by the Commission for Technology and Innovation (CTI). CTI will provide funds to the twelve institutions involved in BIOSWEET so that they can develop new research capacities over the coming three years. The network will be aiming for a faster implementation of research results. To achieve this, they will hire technicians, laboratory assistants and other qualified staff who will contribute to executing tests in pilot plants and upscaling to industrial levels. The lead of BIOSWEET is at the Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI). The list of participants includes several researchers of NRP 66, among others Frédéric Vogel (PSI, deputy director of BIOSWEET), Serge Biollaz and Tilman Schildhauer (PSI), Christoph Müller (ETHZ) and Frédéric Maréchal (EPFL) with their respective research teams.