Bioenergy village

A bio-energy village is a regionally oriented concept for the use of renewable energy sources in rural areas. The system uses biomass from local agriculture and forestry in a biogas powerplant to meet the complete energy requirements of a village, such as electricity and district heating.

These villages tend to be self-powered and independent from external grids, despite being connected to overland grids for feeding surplus energy. The term "bio-energy village" refers to a dependency on fresh biological material as a source of energy only whereas an "ecovillage" includes a variety of networks.

Examples of such villages are Jühnde near Göttingen, Mauenheim near Tuttlingen and Bollewick near Berlin in Germany.