A look at the EU's work on the standardisation of solid biofuels

The market for solid biofuels is growing very rapidly, with more and more large powerplants using biomass (residues, pellets, briquettes, woodchips) as a fuel source either to be co-fired with coal or to be used as a single fuel. Smaller systems, such as combined-heat and power (CHP) biomass plants that not only deliver clean electricity to towns and city districts, but warm water as well, are seeing massive investments too in Europe.
Several large utilities even go so far as to import raw biomass from all over the world (wood from Canada and Latin-America, palm kernels from SE Asia, coffee and cocoa residues from West-Africa...).

When a market is expanding so rapidly, the need for standards increases. Contrary to liquid biofuels, such standards for solid bioenergy feedstocks are currently missing. This is why the EU has set in motion an institutional machinery aimed at establishing such technical standards. Biomass is a renewable energy source that can contribute substantially to achieve the GHG emission reduction aims. To smoothen the utilisation of this huge potential, biomass must be integrated much better into the energy system. Therefore, the creation of a dynamic and sustainable Europe-wide market for solid biofuels is urgently needed. A main prerequisite for this are clear and understandable "market rules" which ensure that the properties and the quality of the solid biofuels to be traded are well-known to all the players: producers, traders and end-users.

The currently ongoing European standardisation process develops such "market rules". Such standards are needed to define key properties of different biofuels as well as for test methods to prove if the defined key properties are met. This also implies the need for standards for sampling and sample reduction as well as for fuel quality assurance.

An international conference to be held in Leipzig in october will give a comprehensive overview of the current status and the results of these standardisation efforts carried out by CEN Technical Committee 335 "Solid Biofuels". In addition, the results of the European Commission research project "BioNorm" supporting the standardisation process will be presented.

Standardization might seem to be a bit boring as a subject. But the EU's standards often have a huge impact outside the EU and as the world's largest economy, the EU can afford itself to use standardization as a political instrument. This is illustrated best by the famous REACH law which the EU finalized recently. The law, regulating the use of chemicals in products, now forces all manufacturers who want to sell their products in the EU, to comply with the very stringent, revolutionary standards. One single law has transformed an entire global industry.
We think the same might happen with biofuels. Many countries can't wait to export their biomass - in whatever form - to the large EU market, but they will have to conform to the standards which promise to be stringent, not only on the technical front but also when it comes to social and environmental criteria. Standards can regulate an industry for the better. But of course, they can also act as a barrier. Or even as a protectionist measure.

So which criteria is the EU currently using in the standardization process for solid biofuels? Let us have a look:
solid :: biomass :: bioenergy :: biofuels :: energy :: sustainability :: standardisation :: European Union


First of all there are the purely technical standards and methods to determine whether a solid biofuel product complies. We sum some of those up, just to present an overview of what solid biofuels producers might have to take into account in the future:

-Standards and methods for the determination of moisture content
-Standards and methods for the determination of ash content
-Standards and methods for sampling particulate material transported in lorries
-Standards and methods for preparing sampling plans and sampling certificates
-Standards and methods for sample preparation
-Standards and methods for the determination of calorific value
-Fuel specifications and classes
-Standards and methods for the determination of bulk density
-Determination of total content of carbon, hydrogen and nitrogen
-Methods for the determination of the water soluble content of chloride, sodium and potassium
-Method for the determination of the content of volatile matter
-Methods for the determination of particle size distribution
-Methods for the determination of particle density
-Methods for the determination of mechanical durability of pellets and briquettes
-Fuel quality assurance
-Determination of total content of sulphur and chlorine
-Determination of major elements
-Calculation of analyses to different bases
-Determination of minor elements

A whole list, with more sub-sections and methodologies.

Secondly, and beyond mere technical standards are standards that will be implemented via certification instruments:

-social sustainability standards, dealing with the circumstances in which labor is used during the production of solid biofuels (especially aimed at biofuels coming from the developing world)
-environmental sustainability standards, covering environmental aspects of the production process itself, but also taking into account CO2 emissions released during the entire logistical chain which stretches from the farmgate to the end-user (again, long-distance trade of e.g. palm kernels from South East Asia to Europe might find it difficult to comply with such a criterion).

For the time being, the latter standards are not fixed by the EU and they are voluntarily implemented and publicized by the industry itself. Several formal attempts at establishing certification criteria for solid biomass are underway.

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