BioEthanol for Sustainable Transport, BEST, was a four year demonstration project in several European regions and cities, with support from the European Commission.
Between the beginning of 2006 and the end of 2009 different technologies were demonstrated, and different approaches to creating the market were tested and evaluated. The idea was to learn how the public and private sector together can create the right market conditions for a significant shift from fossilfuelled vehicles to ones that run on a renewable fuel.
Despite the strong debate on the sustainability of biofuels, the project surpassed its own goals and introduced over 70,000 bioethanol-powered cars and buses, making it probably the largest demonstration project of vehicles ever carried out in Europe.
Participating cities/regions were:
- Biofuel Region (SE)
- Brandenburg (DE)
- Somerset(UK)
- Rotterdam (NL)
- Basque Country and Madrid (ES)
- La Spezia (IT)
- Nanyang (China)
- Sao Paolo (Brazil)
- Co-ordinating City was Stockholm (SE).
The Final report and several other reports generated by the project can be found in Newsletters and Reports.
Organisation
The organsation of BEST contained a Steering Group, a Political Group, a Project Management Team, Site Groups and Workpackage-groups.
Financing
BEST was supported financially by the European Union. This means that several of the investments and some of the work done had some support from EU. The partners financed the rest, mostly the biggest part.
The work and investments within BEST gaining European support was estimated to amount almost 17 700 000 €. In addition a lot of non funded work and investments were carried out in, or very close to, the project, meaning the ”real” BEST budget was higher
BEST was one of two sister projects within the European Partnership Biofuel-Cities; the other project is BiogasMAX. One aim for the European partnerships like Biofuel –Cities is to establish European partnerships for innovative demonstration of alternative fuels and energy efficient vehicles, which will foster the progressive take up of alternatives to petrol and diesel.
Together with another European Partnership, Hydrogen for Transport, the partnerships build up the Alternative Motor Fuel Work programme. This is part of the Sixth Framework Programme and aims toward the mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions growth, the reduction of over-dependence on oil and the promotion of biofuels for transport applications.