ENSO Group, second European company to certify the sustainability of biomass with SURE

Bioelectrica de Garray and Gestión de Biomasas , both companies of the ENSO group , have received their SURE accreditation after successfully concluding the corresponding audit on the first day of September 2021 and in anticipation of the transposition of the RED II Directive in Spain.

With these two new certificates, Spain now has four SURE accreditations and is at the head of Europe in business commitment to the sustainability of biomass for energy uses. In July of this year, ENCE was the first to do so at its plants in Extremadura and Pontevedra. The Polish company Eteris has been the fifth company to achieve this.

According to Aitor Rentería, head of Biomass Management at the company, “ENSO is firmly committed to sustainability and has been developing its internal work protocols and standards for years so that they allow perfect traceability. This is why the certification of our companies has been able to be carried out in a very short time, since it has not involved modification of our processes but rather documentary adaptation to the SURE system.”

RED II, opportunity to demonstrate the sustainability of the energy use of biomass

The European Commission , through the Renewable Energy Directive 2018/2001 (RED II), will impose compliance with a series of sustainability criteria for biomass used in power generation plants of more than 20 MW if it is biomass solid, and more than 2 MW for gaseous biomass.

The imminent transposition of RED II into national legislation will force all companies in the biomass supply chain and the plants themselves to be certified in one of the schemes approved by the commission itself, one of which is SURE.

The biomass originated in Spain is sustainable given the extensive existing regulation , which imposes important restrictions and controls for its exploitation and use. However, since RED II is applicable throughout Europe and affects all types of biomass regardless of its origin (including that from third countries with a real risk of deforestation), it is necessary to present additional documentation that ratifies it.

At this time, explains Pablo Rodero, responsible for certification projects at AVEBIOM and president of the European Pellet Council, “the association is contacting the autonomous communities to prepare a Regional Risk Assessment that facilitates the smallest agents in the supply chain of biomass the realization of a self-declaration of origin. In this way, the entire group (company and supply chain) will be able to demonstrate that it works in accordance with the RED II regulations.”