Biomass for the energy transition

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August 27, 2024

Published July 25, 2024

Wood for energy generation or biogas for heating and biofuel in the tank – a team of researchers has modelled what the optimal role of the limited biomass in the national energy transition could look like.

12.05.2023 – Biomass is diverse, and it can make a significant contribution to meeting energy needs in the transport sector as well as in the heating and electricity sectors. But how much is too much? And for which purposes is biomass best suited? This question has already heated up tempers and is pushing itself more and more to the fore.

A team of researchers from the German Biomass Research Center, together with the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ), has for the first time modeled a total of 111 different bioenergy options in scenarios in great detail in the "SoBio" project. Bioenergy options were considered to cover the residual load and to compensate for fluctuating renewable energies in electricity generation.

In addition, bioenergy technologies can be used in the heating sector to cover the energy demand in the three sectors of industry (low, medium and high temperature), buildings (private households, commerce and commerce) and district heating. In the transport sector, biofuels also serve as fulfillment options in the six sub-sectors of road/passenger transport, commercial vehicles, aviation, rail, inland waterway vessels and ocean-going vessels.

"The modelling results developed in the project have shown that biomass has its cost-optimal benefits especially in those sectors where direct electrification is not possible or only possible to a limited extent. Bioenergy remains indispensable for the success of the energy transition if considerable additional costs are not to be accepted through the production and import of Power-to-X energy sources," explains Kathleen Meisel, scientist at the DBFZ.

The ideal determined in the model: In the heating sector, the largest amount of biomass in the form of wood chips from wood residues and the energy crop Miscanthus is used for high-temperature industrial applications. In the electricity sector, the use of biogas from domestic fermentable residues and waste materials or corn as well as smaller quantities of waste wood in waste wood cogeneration plants for flexible coverage of the residual load is the most cost-efficient option in the long term. In the transport sector, road and rail transport should be electrified in a cost-effective manner. In the long term, biomass will only be used as biokerosene in aviation and as liquefied biomethane in shipping.

The underlying assumptions as well as the main results and conclusions are presented on the project website. Pf