Enviva Statement on July 13, 2022 EU Parliament’s Industry Research and Energy (ITRE) Committee Vote

We are encouraged by today’s vote of the EU Parliament’s Industry Research and Energy (ITRE) Committee making further progress on Renewable Energy Directive III, in particular their decision to expand the scenarios under which power-only plants using forest biomass can continue to receive support. This step demonstrates the alignment of the ITRE Committee not only with four of the six other EU Parliament committees, but also the Council of the EU and the EU Commission on the importance of sustainable biomass to the EU’s efforts to mitigate climate change.

Biomass energy accounts for almost 60% of the renewable energy generation in Europe and provides baseload, renewable and affordable power and heat to EU consumers, while supporting energy security, which has become even more critical in today’s geopolitical environment. In order for the EU to reach their objective of climate-neutrality by 2050, biomass use in power and heat plants alone will need to double.

In the words of Markus Pieper, rapporteur of the ITRE Committee at the press conference held on the results of the ITRE Committee vote, he declared that “everything should be made more simple and swift for biomass…, we [ITRE Committee] still have problems with the definition of secondary and primary biomass; the criteria from the ENVI [Environment] Committee we feel would limit the availability of biomass… We have previously been too restrictive in our definitions. We need to establish this clearly at the next plenary and that’s what we intend to do.”

When the EU Parliament votes on RED III later this year and final compromise position in the trilogue of the EU Parliament, the Council of the EU and the EU Commission is resolved in the first part of next year, we firmly believe that the importance of primary woody biomass will remain consistent with Enviva’s responsible sourcing practices and the leading academic and scientific research, which continues to underpin the essential role of sustainable bioenergy as one of the most effective tools in the world’s arsenal  to fight climate change.