The biomass electricity generation sector wants to install 700 MW by 2025

During the allegations period, AVEBIOM (Spanish Biomass Association) presented the draft of the order that regulates the renewable energy auction mechanism for electricity generation and the calendar for the period 2020-2025 the proposal to start in 2020 with 200 MW for biomass and continue until 2025 adding 100 MW each year to reach a total of 700 MW in plants with a maximum power of up to 20 MW.

This increase in power and the limitation on the size of the plants would make it possible to valorize around 7 million tons of biomass each year and consolidate a wide network of suppliers that would generate a large amount of employment in rural areas.

However, the recently approved order eliminates the minimum quota of 80 MW initially allocated for biomass in the 2020 auction and establishes an auction calendar for this technology every 2 years, accumulating the annual objectives with the argument that this “facilitates the viability and participation of projects with sufficient size.”

Javier Díaz, president of AVEBIOM, believes that eliminating the 2020 auction has been a strange decision. “Having auctioned the accumulated power of the first two years immediately, that is, 140 MW, limiting the concentration of power in a few projects, would have been a relief for companies with projects in areas of high biomass density.”

In 2020, auctions will be called for a minimum of 3,000 MW, of which at least 2,000 MW will be allocated to wind and photovoltaic energy and the remaining 1,000 MW without technological restriction. “Leaving 1,000 MW without specifying technologies will favor the massive installation of photovoltaics, without a doubt,” says Javier Díaz. "In addition, allowing the presentation of high-power biomass projects, as has already happened in previous auctions, greatly distorts the advantages of biomass by concentrating enormous consumption in a single plant, on the order of 450,000 tons per year of biomass for a 50 MW plant, which requires biofuel supplies from great distances to the installation,” concludes Díaz.

On the other hand, the start-up of 700 new MW would enable greater use of agricultural biomass, such as the pruning of vineyards, fruit trees, straw and other agrobiomass, which fits perfectly with the postulates of the circular economy and would ease the pressure on forest biomass that, today, provides more than 60% of solid biofuels to generate electrical energy with biomass.