PRESS RELEASE
New statistics highlight importance of bioenergy within recently approved REDII
Three days after the approval of the Renewable Energy Directive (REDII), the EU’s largest legal effort to promote renewable energy across Member States towards 2030, trade association Bioenergy Europe releases its yearly collection of updated statistics to help understand the relevance of bioenergy within the directive and beyond.
Brussels, 15 November 2018 – As we speak, 83% of the energy Europeans consume comes from fossil sources that are largely imported. This presents enormous challenges for our future, in both environmental and economical terms, and slows the EU down on its track to net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. New figures presented in Bioenergy Europe’s latest Statistical Report help understanding how the recently approved directive marks an important milestone as far as bioenergy is concerned.
50% of the EU’s energy consumption goes to heating & cooling
The approved directive takes the right steps towards 2050, putting a stronger emphasis on the heating & cooling sector: 81% of the heat for our households, public buildings and factories is still produced with fossil fuels. Households are in dire need for a change: 76% of their heating needs are still covered by fossil fuels.
Brussels has mostly focused on cleaning electricity so far. Efforts to inject more renewables in the production of electricity must be coupled with at least as much determination in decarbonising heating and cooling: while the renewable share in electricity production is 30%, the one for heat is lagging with a mere 20%. Direct heat technologies such as modern, efficient biomass-powered stoves and boilers, as well as district heating networks are already part of the solution (87% of our renewable heat is produced from biomass) and should be further promoted.
Every minute, European forests grow by the size of a football field
The directive also takes measures to make sure bioenergy is produced within a sustainable framework. The safe, legal supply of wood foreseen within these measures will guarantee an adequate regeneration of forests and preserve or improve their production capacity.
These measures build on forest conditions that are already encouraging: Bioenergy Europe’s report highlights how EU-28 forests have been growing at a rate of a football field per minute, amounting to a total forest stock increase of 32% over the last quarter of a century. Moreover, while the consumption of bioenergy has doubled since 2000, the proportion of wood removals for energy (increased by a mere total of 4% in the last 16 years) versus industrial uses has been steady on 1 to 5, further proof that our forests are not managed for energy purposes.
This year, Bioenergy Europe’s Statistical Report is distributed free of charge – to provide Brussels’ decision makers with solid evidence to build on when working on Europe’s needed energy transition. More figures on the role played by bioenergy in the greater EU energy context are available on Bioenergy Europe’s Statistical Report.