The Center for Renewable Energy Sources and Saving is the Greek national centre for Renewable Energy Sources (CRES), Rational Use of Energy (RUE) and Energy Saving (ES). CRES is a public entity, supervised by the Ministry of Environment and Climate Change, having nevertheless, financial and administrative independence. The Biomass Department is part of the CRES’ Division for Renewable Energy Sources. During the last two decades, biomass department has been successfully involved in more than 100 European projects in the areas of its expertise).
The BD-CRES has outstanding experience in non-food crops production for both energy production and industrial use. It has also developed research activities in the following fields: evaluation of the biomass and energy potential of a wide range of energy crops grown in experimental field trials; research on new non-food crops better adapted to soil and water stress conditions; evaluation of the logistics involved and optimisation of the bioenergy – biorefinery system; resource assessment for various biomass feedstock using GIS methodologies; economic appraisal of implementing biomass (energy crops, agricultural and processing wastes) in niche energy markets.
Over the years, the BD-CRES has coordinated several european projects: BIOKENAF (www.cres.gr/biokenaf), 4FCROPS (www.4fcrops.eu), FIBRA (www.fibrafp7.net), BIOENERGY CHAINS (www.cres.gr/bioenergy_chains), Crops2Industry (www.crops2industry.eu), BIOCOGEN (www.cres.gr/biocogen), BIODIESEL CHAINS (www.cres.gr/biodiesel_chains),Arundo donax network, etc. Currently, BD-CRES is coordinating two HORIZON 2020 projects namely MAGIC (Marginal land s for growing industrial crops, www.magic-h2020.eu) and PANACEA (A thematic network for the successful penetration path of non-food crops into EU agriculture, www.panacea-h2020.eu) and participating as WP leader in another two: COSMOS & BeCool.
BD-CRES has already established experience in collaboration with China in the view of two EU research projects (FIBRA & OPTIMA) and one between Greece & China (FIBRACOM).