RES Scenario in the European Union - The Sustainability of Renewable Energy in Europe - page 54

The main driver for growth of biomass is electricity production, regardless of
whether or not to happen in cogeneration. The majority of European states, driven
from their commitments taken in the national action plans for RES, have created
the context for the development of electricity production from biomass by applying
incentive mechanisms for the production of green electricity. This strong political
will arrive at a favorable moment, when coal plants are aging and require significant
investment to make the modernization or the construction of new power plants. This
could lead operators to allocate part of their investments in co-firing plants or even
100 % biomass.
This passage of energy from biomass is not easy because the investment choices
depend on issues related to combustion technologies, security of supply, the type
of fuel used and to their costs, in a time when the demand for biomass is growing
more and more. Up to now, the local supply constraints have limited the power
supply of biomass power plants under 50 MW. The decision to build plants much
more powerful, or to convert coal plants to several hundred mega watt biomass co-
firing, will result in an expansion of the range of fuel supply and the related logistic
issue. Northern EU countries, which have particularly developed forest industries
that generate waste biomass, are ahead of the technical and logistical. They include
leading companies in the production market power and cogeneration from biomass.

2.3 EU RES Outlook by Scenario

The latest edition of the future scenarios of the IEA ( 2014a ), the WEO-2014, shows
that the pursuit of “climate” requires the development and dissemination of RES
much higher than those that current policies and those provided by the scenario
of new policies can ensure. The WEO-2014 presents three scenarios, i.e., the new
policy scenario, the 450 scenario, and the current policy scenario with a time hori-
zon to 2040. The new policy scenario is based on the continuation of policies that
had been legally enacted as of mid-2014 plus plans and commitments that have
been announced by countries even if they are not yet implemented. The 450 sce-
nario provides energy pathway consistent with the goal of limiting GHG emissions
to an atmospheric concentration that does not exceed 450 ppm CO 2 -equivalent, so
as to hold the increase in global average temperature below 2 °C. This scenario is
considered as a kind of lifeline to preserve the environment from the consequences
of the danger of climate change. The current policy scenario takes into account only
the policies put in place until the middle of 2014 and it describes a future in which
governments do not implement recent commitments nor introduce new policies.
For instance, the 450 scenario promises for the year 2040 a share of RES in the
total world demand for primary energy sources of 30 %, compared to 19 % new
policies scenario and 15 % current policies scenario, doubling the current share
(Table 2.10 ). This perspective, however, it is possible not only with an increase
in the so-called modern RES but also through the progressive replacement of the