Japan mulls Green Gold Label for biomass certification

Japan is mulling the addition of Green Gold Label (GGL) certification scheme in the country's certification programme to ensure sustainability of its imports of palm kernel shell (PKS) and palm trunk, given the increasing use of the fuels and growing concerns over traceability and legality.

A working group to study the sustainability of biomass, which was created under the trade and industry ministry (Meti), has proposed to include the GGL scheme as a third-party certification body, on top of approved two organisations - the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil for palm oil and the Roundtable on Sustainable Biomaterials for PKS and palm trunk. The group has concluded the GGL meets the government's requirements to ensure sustainability in environmental, social, labour, governance and supply chain categories.

The working group plans to submit the draft decision to the feed-in-tariff (FiT) pricing committee, also set under Meti, to ask for evaluation of the GGL addition. It remains unclear when and whether the committee approves the new certification scheme, although it is expected to take effect in April 2021 at earliest.

Japanese renewable power firm Erex secured the GGL certification in April this year, as the first Japanese firm, to ensure sustainability of its imports of PKS.

The working group has also proposed to extend the grace period by one year to secure a third-party certification for the agricultural biomass generation fuels, in response to request from the industry association. The FiT pricing committee will then discuss the matter.

Japan's biomass regulations require a power firm that use an agricultural biomass fuel to obtain a third-party certification to ensure the fuel is sustainable. But it has granted a grace period for existing projects with a deadline of 31 March 2021 for palm oil and 31 March 2022 for PKS and palm trunk. New projects, which will receive the FiT approval by each deadline, can also have the similar grace period.

The working group said the grace period should be extended to 31 March 2022 for palm oil and 31 March 2023 for PKS and palm trunk, given a lack of manpower at the current certification bodies and restricted travel to and in biomass producing countries amid Covid-19 outbreak, which delays the evaluation process.

Japanese firms, including even non-energy companies, have geared up their efforts to develop biomass power projects, taking advantage of the FiT scheme that ensures power producers can sell electricity for 20 years at a fixed price.

The combined capacity of biomass power plants that have received government approval to operate under the FiT scheme was 8,531MW at the end of March this year. This has increased to around 10,831MW, including 2,300MW installed before the FiT system was launched in 2012. This is in excess of Japan's 2030 biomass power target of 6,020-7,280MW.

By Motoko Hasegawa