Essent joins BE-Basic

Delft, The Netherlands – energy supplier Essent has joined BE-Basic as a full consortium party. Within BE-Basic Essent is going to look at the availability and accessibility of sustainable biomass as a fuel for green energy production. In addition BE-Basic and Essent will collaborate on the development of widely accepted certification of new biomass.

Reducing the dependence on fossil fuels makes the transition to a bio-based economy an important issue. In this economy, biomass becomes both the fuel for generating energy and the raw material for making chemicals and other products such as plastics, medicines, and building materials. As a part of BE-Basic, Essent is committed to developing and researching renewable biomass as a fuel for the production of green energy.

Biomass Availability

"We have over 20 years of experience in producing green energy from biomass, and have already done research on the uses of new types of biomass such as plant waste, agricultural waste, or organic waste", said Peter-Paul Schouwenberg, Projectmanager Biobased-economy at Essent. "In order to transition to these types of biomass on a large scale, their availability and accessibility need to be well understood. And that is what we are committed to doing as part of BE-Basic, in addition to developing a widely-supported system of certification. In this process, we will gladly be making use of the expert in-house knowledge that BE-Basic already has".

All relevant sectors

"We very much look forward to working closely with Essent", said BE-Basic director Luuk van der Wielen. "Because of BE-Basic’s strong emphasis on chemicals, materials, and the environment, this partnership is a welcome and necessary addition to an integrated approach towards transitioning to a bio-based economy. That is why we are happy to have all of the relevant sectors on board. In addition to the leading players in the chemical and materials industry (DSM, AkzoNobel, CSM/Purac) and the environmental/agricultural sector (Bioclear, BioDetection Systems, BLGG and others), Essent’s participation means that the energy sector is now also soundly represented. This is an important step forward”.

Opportunities

The bio-based economy offers new opportunities in the Netherlands for employment, the knowledge economy, agriculture, the chemical industry, and the energy sector. Because of the Netherlands’ central location and its strong logistics sector, Rotterdam has the potential to become Europe’s largest biomass port.

About Essent

Essent is the largest producer of renewable energy in the Netherlands, and supplies electricity, gas, and heat to both consumers and business customers. Essent considers the Netherlands and Belgium to be its home market. The total production capacity of Essent’s power plants is approximately 3,000 MW, and almost 2,700 MW of further capacity is currently under construction. Essent produces one quarter of all the sustainably produced electricity in the Netherlands, and employs 4,500 people. More information is available at www.essent.nl/overessent and www.twitter.com/essentnieuws.

Essent is part of the multinational RWE. With a 2010 turnover of EUR 53 billion and 71,000 employees, RWE is one of the leading European suppliers of electricity and gas. RWE supplies electricity and gas to more than 24 million customers in Europe, making it one of the top-five European energy companies. RWE invests an average of EUR 1 billion per year on European renewable energy projects.