IEA Bioenergy Tasks 42 and Task 37 3-days event 21-23 October 2025, Wageningen, the Netherlands

From October 21-23, 2025 our Task 42 (Biorefining in a Circular Economy) organised together with Task 37 (Energy from Biogas) individual task meetings, a first-time ever joint task meeting Task 42+Task 37 and a symposium on Biorefining and Biomethane in Wageningen (NL). And as a tradition, the third day includes an exciting and inspiring visit into industrial sites for both topics.

Day 1 started with individual Task meetings. For Task 42 good discussions were held about the progress of our workplan:

• New TEE factsheets were published; old factsheets will be updated and new cases selected
• More industrial biorefinery clusters, involving more than one company, were established
• For Denmark updated biorefinery initiatives were presented
• Atlas data portal was updated with new software and data
• Methodology for integration of biorefinery and green H2 was developed and will now be validated
• Potential integration of green biorefinery and biogas was discussed. This is one of the topics of this 3-day event.
• First coupling options of biorefinery outputs to sustainable building materials was presented
• Sweden will focus on forestry residues for multi-product biorefinery

On Day 2 the first-ever joint Tasks meeting of Task 42 and Task 37 was held to discuss, connect and make plans for stimulating the integration of multi-product biorefinery with biogas production. About 30 participants attended this joint Tasks meeting.

Day 2 Symposium “Biorefinery and Bio-methane” was held with >75 participants discussing latest developments on biorefinery, biogas and bio-methane initiatives, policies from various countries, views from the Netherlands, Brazil, and Australia and associated challenges. A lively discussion in good atmosphere was seen during the whole event. The symposium was finalized with a networking event.

Day 3. With both Tasks we visited three impressive industrial-scale facilities in the Netherlands driving the bio-based transition:

Avantium new flagship plant (Delfzijl), producing, among other materials, PEF, a biobased alternative releaf® by avantium to PET.

SFP Group‘s biogas facility in (Delfzijl), currently under construction, and showcasing the development of biogas infrastructure.

VARO Energy ’s biogas plant Bio Energy Coevorden (Coevorden), advancing large-scale biomethane production based on manure and waste materials.

Our discussions this week focused on how biorefineries and anaerobic digestion can be effectively integrated into future bio-based value chains.