Industry warns on primary woody biomass

The the EU's revised 2018 renewable energy directive (RED III) could see primary woody biomass subject to a cap and excluded from financial support, if provisions adopted by the European Parliament are agreed into law with EU member states.

Industry association Bioenergy Europe welcomed the parliament's vote to keep counting all forms of biomass for energy — including primary woody biomass — as a renewable energy source under the EU's 2030 target. But contentious amendments received support in plenary on 14 September. Parliament now wants to cap the share of primary woody biomass at levels seen in 2017-2022 and remove the eligibility of primary woody biomass for financial support.

Members passed an additional amendment that called for a "phase-down", by 2030, of the share of fuels derived from primary woody biomass that count towards EU renewable targets. The phase-down will be based on an impact assessment to be carried out by the European Commission within three years of RED III being up and running.

The text adopted by parliament on 14 September still needs to be agreed into law, following negotiations with EU countries. EU countries reached a compromise in June confirming support for the European Commission's original July 2021 proposal that member states should not grant support to the production of energy from "saw logs, veneer logs, stumps and roots and avoid promoting the use of quality roundwood for energy except in well-defined circumstances".

EU countries do not currently mention or exclude primary woody biomass in their support schemes. But member states suggest use of woody biomass according to its "highest economic and environmental added value" as wood-based products. And member states want support schemes for bioenergy to be designed to avoid "incentivising unsustainable bioenergy pathways and distorting competition with the material sectors".

Caps and phase-downs would be "counterproductive" and limiting the use of bioenergy contradicts the commission's climate ambitions and affects the entire supply chain, Bioenergy Europe said. Policy director Irene di Padua strongly opposes excluding primary woody biomass from financial support schemes. "This undermines the viability of sustainable forest management practices, which would have an impact on the entire value chain," she said. "At the same time the parliament is asking member states to support a higher renewable target. It is difficult to see how restricting support for renewables would help reach that goal," di Padua said.

There needs to be a balance between avoiding the negative effects on biodiversity and the impact this could have on energy supply, EU commissioner Adina Valean said in parliament. "Restricting renewable targets to primary woody biomass would not send the right signal in the current context of tight energy supplies," she said.

Tackling tight energy markets saw commission president Ursula von der Leyen announce emergency measures including power demand reduction obligations and a price cap. If adopted by EU member states, not parliament, the cap would also oblige utilities to secure pellets at a wide discount to current spot market prices, in order to keep fuel costs at or under the planned €180/MWh cap.

The voted draft suggests a stipulation that member states consider "the available sustainable supply of biomass for energy and non-energy uses … as well as the principles of the circular economy and the biomass cascading use". But it adds that countries should be able to grant support for the production of energy from stumps or roots in the case of waste, or from residues from works on nature conservation and landscape management. Member states should avoid promoting the use of quality roundwood for energy except in well-defined circumstances such as wildfire prevention and salvage logging. Bioenergy Europe had said in a position paper earlier this month that the cascading principle should not be regulated at the European level.

The parliament also voted that member states should not give support to electricity-only plants from 2026, unless installations are in regions with a specific use status in their transition away from fossil fuels, or if they use carbon capture and storage, or — in exceptional justified cases — if the installations cannot be modified in a direction to cogeneration.

Dafydd ab Iago and Erisa Senerdem