Germany removes brown grease from advanced feedstocks

Germany removed brown grease from its list of advanced biofuels feedstocks only a week after it had been classified as such.

The federal institute for agriculture and food, BLE, which is in charge of Germany's sustainable biomass system Nabisy, said today that brown grease — which is floatable spent fats, oils, or greases, settled solids, and associated wastewater — no longer counts as advanced according to Annex IX of the revised Renewable Energy Directive (RED II) in Germany.

The addition of brown grease to Germany's list of advanced feedstocks just over a week ago had created uncertainty in European biofuels markets as it came just weeks after the Netherlands has classified the feedstock as Annex IX Part B of the RED II, rather than as Annex IX Part A — or advanced — feedstock. The European Commission in December started a consultation on a revised list of permissible waste and advanced feedstocks for biofuels production, which suggested moving brown grease from Part A to Part B feedstocks, alongside used cooking oil (UCO).

The introduction of brown grease in Germany weighed in particular on the price of the country's greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reduction certificates, which plummeted on the outlook of rising supply of advanced biodiesel and HVO, which also qualify for double-counting, in the German market. Double-counting advanced certificates for the 2023 compliance year were valued in a €670-700/t CO2e range last week, sliding by €85/t CO2e compared with the week earlier.

According to market participants, around 25-30pc of freely traded volumes of advanced Fame in Europe are from brown grease, while around 65-70pc are Pome derived and a far smaller volume from other feedstocks such as acid oils. Brown grease based-biodiesel BGME has so far been a popular advanced and double-counted biofuel in Spain, the UK and until recently in the Netherlands.

By Sophie Barthel