Bioenergy in Italy

Bioenergy in Italy 
Guest editorial by Luca Benedetti, ExCo Member for Italy

IEA Bioenergy News
Volume 28 • Number 1 June 2016 

Bioenergy in Italy plays an important role in the national energy framework, and particularly in the Renewable Energy Supply (RES) sector. In 2014, about 8.2% of the gross final energy consumption was covered by bioenergy. If we focus on the RES gross final consumptions, the contribution from bioenergy to the total consumption rises to 48%. Concerning the electricity sector, bioenergy production in 2014 amounted to 18,732 GWh (+9.6% compared to 2013) with an installed capacity of 4,044 MW. The 2014 production is due mainly to biogas power plants (43.8% with an installed capacity of about 1,406 MW), followed by solid biomass (including wastes – 33.1% with an installed capacity of about 1,610 MW), and bioliquids (23.2% with an installed capacity of about 1,027 MW). According to initial estimates, bioenergy production in 2015 should be about 18,894 GWh with an installed capacity of about 4,087 MW. In 2014 the total amount spent by Italy to sustain bioenergy for electricity production amounted to €2.63 billion. Italian support policies on bioenergy have the aim of allocating primarily wood biomass, mechanically treated, to the heating sector and to promote the efficient use of waste and by-products and the use of biogas from livestock waste or byproducts from agriculture, agro-food, agro-industrial, farming and forestry. Furthermore Italy encourages the realisation and the operation, by the farmers, of biomass and biogas plants operating in agricultural activities, in particular micro CHP and the use of sustainable bioliquids and biomethane in transport. Considering the heating sector, bioenergy, including wastes, covered 70.9% of the energy consumption from RES in 2014, corresponding to 7.04 Mtoe, of which 6.73 Mtoe was from solid biomass (including the organic fraction of waste), 0.28 Mtoe from biogas and 0.03 Mtoe from bioliquids. The largest part of consumption is due to the use of bioenergy in the residential sector for heating, in particular the use of firewood (87.4%) – mainly in traditional fireplaces and stoves, pellet (11.8%), and charcoal (0.8%). According to initial estimates, in 2015 gross final energy consumption from bioenergy in the heating sector amounted to 7.69 Mtoe. Furthermore it is estimated that bioenergy produced around 0.2 Mtoe distributed through district heating networks and potentially it can still increase.

Italy is well positioned in the heating and cooling renewables industrial sector, especially in the biomass sphere, where about 65% of the technology installed is Italian-produced (data relating to 2013), including in the sectors with the highest technological content. Concerning the transport sector, sustainable biofuels – according to the RED directive (2009/28/EC) – in 2014 covered 3.2% of transport final energy consumption, corresponding to about 1.06 Mtoe. Preliminary estimates indicate that in 2015 the gross final energy consumption of biofuels amounted to 1.18 Mtoe. Biofuels consumed in Italy are mainly produced from palm oil coming from Indonesia and Malaysia, followed by rapeseed oil mainly produced in EU Countries. In Italy a blending obligation is enforced and a double counting mechanism is applied to specific biofuels. Italian law lays out also a specific pathway leading up to 2022 for biofuel blending obligation quotas with sub-quotas on advanced biofuels (from agricultural and industrial wastes including UCOs and animal fats, residues, ligno-cellulosic materials, etc.). Italy is the top country in the EU for the number of natural gas vehicles and promotes the use of biomethane in the transport sector. Biomethane offers a new possibility for the development of biogas plants other than for RES electricity.

Available at http://www.ieabioenergy.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/IEA-Bioenergy-News-Volume-281-June-2016.pdf [Access 21 de octubre, 2017]