7. Final remarks
An increase in the imports of biomass from outside the
EU will be an effective way to reduce the costs of
compliance with the EU renewable energy directive’s
targets for 2010. A problem with increased import of
biomass could be that the growth in the use of energy crops
in the EU will stagnate if large quantities of forest residues
are imported. The development in wind power may also be
curbed by increased biomass imports, but this is less
significant as wind power, even in a biomass import
scenario, has large predicted growth rates.
Though it is widely recognised that biomass can be a
major contributor to secure compliance with the indicative
targets for 2010, this study shows that biomass may not
play the role expected by the European Commission in the
1997 white paper for renewable energy in which a
contribution from 20,000 MW biomass-fired CHP capacity
in 2010 was expected. This indicates that the targets—and,
in particular, the expectations to the development within
the use of biomass in CHP-plants—at that time were
ambitious. It can also indicate a lack of development in the
desired direction since the publishing of the white paper.
Finally, it indicates that additional subsidies are needed if
the deployment target for biomass-based CHP plants is to
be reached—a common EU TGC price for all RES-E
technologies is not enough.
Some countries in the EU will benefit more than others
with increased use of imported biomass since not all
Member States have the same organised use of biomass at
present. Those countries already having the largest
domestic biomass resources—and thereby an energy system
fitted for biomass use—will be the major importers of
biomass from outside the EU. To avoid industrial and
logistic bottlenecks in the biomass-based RES-E supply,
EU schemes could be initiated in order to share the
experiences between Member States. This will reduce the
likelihood that a small group of EU member countries with
large biomass experience, all have the new capacity
installed and also secure larger usage of the biomass
resources. Increased biomass importation to the EU can in
that way help the biomass-fired CHP sector overcome
some hindrances for expansion.