According to Bioenergy Europe, 69.6% of biomass energy feedstock used in Europe comes from woody biomass, including forestry and wood industry residues, with the remaining 18.3% sourced from agricultural biomass and 12.1% from biowaste. This bioenergy makes up 56.8% of the EU renewable energy mix, with 74.5% used for heating, 13.5% for transport and 12% for electricity. Around 53% of Europe’s bioenergy consumption is industrial and the remainder is used by individual consumers.

Only 4.3% of biomass consumed in the EU is imported from outside the bloc, offering vital energy security in the current crisis caused by the Ukraine conflict. But that is now in jeopardy because of EU policy switches.

Heated debate       
European Parliament amendments to the European Commission’s (EC) July 2021 proposal to revise the EU Renewable Energy Directive (RED) – the so called RED III – could topple biomass from its renewables throne and end an estimated €10bn in subsidies. The EU executive has proposed that member states should design support schemes in line with a ‘biomass cascading principle’, which prioritises alternative biomass material uses, such as making MDF, plywood, furniture and cardboard, rather than energy use wherever possible.

The European Parliament’s September 2022 resolution also said the processing for energy of certain types of ‘primary woody biomass’, which includes all roundwood removed from a forest, including rotten logs or crooked branches, apart from those cut down to make fire breaks, to prevent the spread of disease or for road safety reasons, should be barred from subsidies. According to the World Health Organisation, this would mean 35.7% of the biomass used for bioenergy today could no longer attract EU subsidies.

The European Parliament also wants to see all member state subsidies for electricity generation using forest biomass to end by 31 December 2026, covering all wood from the forest, unless biomass carbon capture and storage (BECCS) systems are used, or the member state gets a waiver from the EC. This waiver would only be issued if cogeneration is not possible or the plant is in a ‘just transition’ area, eligible for subsidies because decarbonisation would have a significant negative economic impact.

The European Parliament’s opposition to biomass largely follows a February 2021 report from the EC’s Joint Research Centre (JRC), The use of woody biomass for energy production in the EU, which looked at different scenarios for biomass use and their impacts on climate and biodiversity. Crucially, the JRC found that 45% of EU biomass goes to material use, such as furniture, while 55% is used for bioenergy. The report also flagged up numerous uncertainties surrounding biomass sourcing and use, and said it was impossible to conclude that biomass provides a climate benefit – a finding that environmentalists and MEPs have jumped on.

Nevertheless, the report concluded that the impact of certain scenarios for biomass use in energy production could be minimised through the ‘swift and robust implementation’ of sustainability criteria in RED II, the 2018 update to the Renewable Energy Directive. There has been criticism of the JRC study as being ‘theoretical’ and that it does not look at whether the different scenarios for biomass use are feasible or comply with RED II. 

Fighting amendments       
In the meantime, national governments, particularly those with strong forestry or biomass sectors, are fighting the amendments. Negotiations between the European Parliament, the EU Council of Ministers and the EC on RED III kicked off on 7 February 2023.

Sweden, in particular, opposes the European Parliament amendments. As the current holder of the rotating EU presidency, it will lead the Council in the negotiations. A confidential Swedish paper seen by New Energy World argues that the new definition of primary woody biomass ‘is not acceptable’. But it suggests a compromise: limiting the definition and therefore the wood excluded from subsidies to ‘quality roundwood’. The Swedish paper also wants to maintain a risk-based approach to ‘no-go’ areas for biomass harvesting for energy production.

Speaking to New Energy World, Martin Pigeon, forest and climate campaigner of conservation non-governmental organisation FERN, says that ‘about a third of historical CO₂ emissions are from land use change (in particular, deforestation), which is more or less on par with coal and bigger than oil’, noting that the current climate emergency has brought concerns about biomass to the fore. ‘We’ve reached a point where we need to reduce emissions immediately. We no longer have the time to burn whole trees and wait for them to grow back,’ he adds.

Pigeon notes that in 2005 about 41% of the annual EU wood harvest was burned. Today that figure is at least 55%. He says that in 2005 the pellets industry fuelling this sector mainly used wood processing residues to make these feedstocks ‘because it was not profitable to use anything else’. Since EU incentives for biomass were set up, Pigeon maintains that the biomass industry now uses ‘low quality stemwood’, which is any tree not valid as timber or parts of the tree minus the trunk, and any trunk which is too young, old or misshapen. ‘The big drama of biomass incentives is that it’s put a price tag on all these trees that didn’t have that before,’ he suggests.

‘The big drama of biomass incentives is that it’s put a price tag on all these trees that didn’t have that before.’ – Martin Pigeon, forest and climate campaigner of conservation NGO, FERN 

Wood pellets – a small role       
Surprisingly, while a lot of controversy focuses on wood pellets, Irene di Padua, Policy Director at Bioenergy Europe, points out that they only account for 10% of the bioenergy market. Moreover, the large plants burning biomass for electricity generation are mostly in southern Europe and mainly use agricultural residues – with the notable exception of the massive Drax power station in the UK.

The European Panel Federation is also calling for the EU to ban primary woody biomass use for energy through strict application of the cascading principle and calls for 60% of biomass to be earmarked for material applications, plus an end to subsidies, which it says ‘distort commercial markets’.

However, di Padua counters that: ‘The industry already follows the cascading principle: material owners are incentivised to sell high-quality wood to the producers of long-lasting solid wood products because the revenue will be several times higher than if it was sold to the energy sector.’ She rejects claims that the bioenergy sector is competing with timber production, ‘as using high-quality roundwood for energy production does not make sense environmentally or economically’.

Wood pellets – will this source of renewable energy be starved of subsidies in the EU going forward?      
Photo: Adobe Stock, Vazgen Waka

Both Bioenergy Europe and the electricity producers’ association Eurelectric have criticised the lack of an impact assessment for the proposed European Parliament amendments. ‘It might be the case that some businesses, like small businesses which are dependent on support, will be forced out of business. Not only in the bioenergy sector, but also in wood-related industries,’ di Padua warns. Noting that forest owners rely on bioenergy subsidies to carry out sustainable forest management practices.

‘What is striking is seeing that fossil fuels still receive more subsidies per unit of energy produced as compared to what bioenergy receives,’ says di Padua, emphasising that ending support for fossil energy and gradually phasing out fossil infrastructure should be the EU’s first priority.

‘We hope this [proposal] will not get through because it will have a very big impact on investments,’ di Padua adds. Nevertheless, she recognises that sustainability criteria are important. ‘But they need to be something that can be applied, and they should not needlessly harm industry or the market,’ she insists.

Eurelectric warned in a letter on 8 November 2023 to EU governments that the European Parliament’s definition of biomass threatens energy security: ‘Given the criticality of biomass in boilers and CHPs [combined heat and power systems], the European Parliament’s approach would lead to further supply shortages for the coming heating seasons, worsening the current gas-supply stress as well as damaging power supply during the time it is most needed.’

Energy prices would also increase as a result. ‘Financial support is key to the use of biomass, as it is for most forms of renewable energy, in many member states,’ the letter stressed. The restrictions on primary woody biomass ‘would arbitrarily reduce available feedstocks that could receive financial support’, sending generators to secondary biomass. Which in turn would cause ‘a significant price increase which will compound the current energy security crisis’. Eurelectric forecasts that this would not just be limited to large generators, ‘but also spill over into the heat market causing further price increases’.

Preliminary results from a yet to be published study by Professor Hubert Röder, Chair for Sustainable Business Economics at the Weihenstephan-Triesdorf University of Applied Sciences, suggest that use of forest residues for bioenergy could save 2.8bn toe CO₂ by 2050.

‘There is still big potential in using primary woody biomass for energy. It is mainly a by-product of smart and sustainable forest management that aimed to produce high-quality timber,’ Röder comments. He warns that: ‘If the residues are not used, they will rot in the forest – without replacing fossil fuels and creating income from sustainable forest management practices. In other words, this is a lose-lose-lose situation for the energy transition, the transition to climate resilient forests and climate change mitigation.’ 

Wood burning stoves produce strong carbon emissions – so should their feedstock attract EU subsidies?     
Photo: Adobe Stock