Proposed revision to the Fuel Quality Directive and Renewable Energy Directive

This proposal to address the climate impact of biofuels by ammending the Renewable Energy Directive and the Fuel Quality Directive, reflects concerns over the sustainability and GHG-reduction benefits of some biofuels. The proposal seeks to limit production of conventional biofuels, due to perceived issues with indirect Land Use Change (which has been the subject of much debate over the scientific validity of the models used). The proposal is currently (February 2015) at the Second Reading stage, with the committees of the European Parliament still debating the fine details.

The main points of the proposal are:

• Mitigation of indirect land-use change emissions through a threshold of 6-7% of the final consumption of energy in transport in 2020 for conventional biofuels to count towards the renewable energy directive target;
• Encouragement of the transition to second and third generation ("advanced") biofuels, through incentives for advanced biofuels by inviting member states to promote the consumption of such biofuels and requiring them to set national targets for advanced biofuels based on a reference value of 0.5 percentage points of the 10 % target for renewable energy in transport
• New Annex IX of the renewable energy directive contains feedstocks for advanced biofuels that count double towards the targets. In addition, advanced biofuels not listed in Annex IX and used in existing installations prior to the adoption of this directive, can be counted towards the national target;
• Additional incentives for advanced biofuels by extending the tool of statistical transfers of the renewables directive to cover such advanced biofuels, the double counting of the contribution of these biofuels is extended to the overall renewables energy targets;
• Provision of incentives to generate electricity from renewable sources in order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in transport. In this regard, a multiplication factor of 5 for electricity from renewable sources in electric road vehicles and of 2.5 for electrified rail transport were introduced;
• ILUC reporting on greenhouse gas emission savings from the use of biofuels will be carried out by the Commission on the basis of data reported by member states; for that purpose, provisional estimated ILUC factors are included in new Annexes to the renewables and fuel quality directives;
• A review clause that includes the possibility of introducing adjusted estimated ILUC factors into the sustainability criteria.