European Waste-based & Advanced Biofuels Association's (Ewaba) secretary general Angel Alvarez Alberdi tells Argus that planned CO2 standards revisions in the EU offer opportunities for fine-tuning legislation, but attention should be paid to biofuels promotion loopholes.
Do you see any revision of CO2 standards, notably in also allowing for engines running on low and no carbon waste-based fuels?
The new European Commission will start working on revisions of key pieces of legislation, not only CO2 standards. We will have a revision of the regulations for maritime but also aviation fuels. And revision of CO2 standards for cars and light-duty vehicles (LDVs) may come earlier, in 2025. You also have the CO2 standards for heavy duty vehicles (HDVs). Everything will be up for grabs. And that means fine-tuning legislation, maintaining a high level of promotion but not setting artificial limitations.
What more can be done to focus EU policy towards sustaining EU biofuels industry?
The policy framework has proven very solid in promoting biofuels. But industry's clear demand is that the EU should first and foremost promote European biofuels, not Chinese biofuels. And there should be no loopholes via whichever third countries not playing by EU rules but benefitting from EU promotion mechanisms.
How about feedstock expansion?
Specifically for waste-based biofuels, we welcome the concept of feedstock expansion in Annex IX of the EU's renewables directive (RED). But our members did not like the last-minute split, creating two different categories, just on the basis of their final use, with aviation deemed advanced in part A. The rest — maritime and road —was deemed part B [mature]. Unfortunately, I don't think that part of the annex will be revised.
In principle, the feedstocks were supposed to be revised on a rolling basis. But you know, it took about four years to have the first revision of RED feedstocks. The next one may take many years to materialise.
Are you happy with EU action on trade issues?
The commission has done much on trade whether Indonesia, Malaysia and China. But you put in place one trade defence instrument. And then you need to jump to a new country. The last one was China. Tomorrow, it could be somewhere else taking advantage of the EU's framework to promote biofuels.
We've been supportive of trade defence measures. But EU industry cannot only be promoted solely via trade defence. Policy needs to follow. And this is something we didn't see in the previous term of the European Commission. More widely, decarbonisation needs to go hand in hand with reindustrialisation and competitiveness — translated into policy drafted to first promote European products.
What other technical issues are you're dealing with?
One immediate regulatory issue is the revised implementing act on standards for voluntary schemes that the commission will present in 2025. Industry badly needs cover crops. But certifying them will also pose some new challenges that need to be addressed now.
Another short term challenge is the entering into force of the Union Database (UDB) that has taken longer than expected. The commission is discussing with voluntary schemes what's the best way forward. We are expecting the commission to soon agree a date with member states as to when the UDB will be fully applicable.
What's still holding UDB up?
My impression is that there are still a few hiccups to be addressed until the whole thing works properly. And companies are concerned because this is a major compliance issue. But we have great hopes that the UDB will further improve transparency and traceability in biofuels markets. When the UDB is entirely ready, you'll have the black box effect — you'll need to consign all trade into the system. Currently, economic operators are registered, but not all transactions can be uploaded. The software is there. The infrastructure is there.
