Biomass - Energy Toolbox

National and international policy is clearly directed to the promotion of renewable energy. As a signatory to Kyoto, the EU has been collectively moving towards the target of ensuring that an increasing proportion of primary power comes from renewable resources, with a target of 12% by 2010 (from 6% in 2001). At the same time a directive from 2001 also sets the intention of developing 22% of electricity from renewables by 2010. The EU has adopted a “carrot and stick” approach to promoting this policy by providing planting grants to farmers wishing to plant energy crops and at the same time imposing strict obligations on the power producers to meet a minimum requirement of their production from renewable sources.

As well as providing internal support to the development of renewables, the EU has also adopted a policy to direct this policy to in its international co-operation programme and has defined both the need for greater efficiency in the use of natural resources for energy production as well as an increase in the proportion of renewables. International support to the greater use of biomass and other non-fossil energy sources is being provided by the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). This provides the basis for those developed countries producing excessive amounts of carbon, to off-set some of their production through financial support to carbon-saving projects within the developing world. CDM is in its early stages of active development but could have an important role in the expansion of dendro-power. We have given particular attention to this aspect under the project and have looked at some of the practical stages needed to develop a project for CDM funding and included case studies of recent projects. Current EU policy on renewable energy and the CDM is discussed in detail in the conference paper prepared by CTI.
View EU Energy Policy [PDF 862Kb]

The countries within SE Asia are urgently developing greater attention to the use of renewables, especially such countries as Sri Lanka, which has no fossil resources of its own. We have looked in detail at the policies being followed by the Governments of Sri Lanka and India as examples for the region and identified some of the key issues that will need to be taken in to account over the next decade to ensure that renewables have a greater proportion of the total energy balance. In India the Government has also accepted the need to double the proportion of power coming from renewable resources, increasing the current base figure of 5% to 10% by 2010.