Biomass-Based Energy System for Multi-Family Buildings Successfully Tested

Growing requirements for climate protection, air quality and security of supply are increasing the pressure to rethink energy provision in the building sector. Multi-family buildings in particular require solutions that integrate renewable energy efficiently while also contributing to a low-emission energy supply.

With the completion of the Horizon Europe project Micro-Bio-CHP at the end of March 2026, another building block for such solutions is now available. The aim of the project was to develop a novel, highly efficient renewable energy system designed to enable a nearly energy-autonomous supply of heat and electricity for multi-family buildings, including electromobility applications. The project ran from October 2022 to March 2026 and was coordinated by Bios Bioenergiesysteme GmbH.

At the heart of the system is a biomass-based micro-CHP technology combining biomass gasification, gas cleaning, a solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC), photovoltaics and energy storage. The system causes almost no emissions of carbon monoxide (CO), organic gaseous compounds (OGC) and dust; at the same time, nitrogen oxide (NO_x) emissions are significantly reduced. Within the project, the technology was validated under application-oriented conditions and reached Technology Readiness Level 5 (TRL 5) by the end of the project.

Within the project, the Wuppertal Institute was responsible in particular for the environmental and overall impact assessments as well as the coordination of dissemination activities. It also organised the international final workshop together with the project partners, where the project results were presented online to around 50 participants from research, industry and policy on 25 March 2026.

"Micro-Bio-CHP has shown the potential of combining biomass gasification, fuel cells, photovoltaics and storage for the energy supply of multi-family buildings. From our perspective, the next step is to further test the technology under real operating conditions and make the results usable for further demonstration and implementation steps," says Thomas Götz, Co-Head of Research Unit Energy Policy at the Wuppertal Institute.

The presentation slides and further project publications are available on the project website. The project was funded under Horizon Europe (Grant Agreement No. 101083409).