Background and introduction to the project

1.1 The political context

By 2050 EU – and Denmark – aims at having reduced greenhouse gas emission by 80-95 % compared to 1990. Over the same period, the Danish Government intends to gradually phase out fossil fuels in transport and energy sectors. The 2013 climate plan further sets out that already by 2035 power and heat should be entirely

produced from renewable sources. These ambitions require transforming the existing Danish energy system into one that incorporates a range of renewable energy sources. Biomass is foreseen to play an important role in the transformation, alongside wind and solar.

The Danish energy agreement, concluded by a parliamentary majority in March 2012, stipulates a number of initiatives to be implemented before 2020 to facilitate this transformation, one of which is an analysis of the potential role of biomass in the development of the Danish energy system towards 2050.

1.2 General project description

General objectives

The project is about the use of bioenergy in the Danish energy system and focus has come to be on framework conditions for a Greenhouse Gas use of biomass in the future energy supply. Project objective is been for the time period 2013 to 2050 to assess consequences of alternative bioenergy pathways using a life cycle

perspective.

This project is one out of a series of interrelated projects made to support political decisions and designing the future energy Danish system. Publications within the project framework are:

› ”Imported wood fuels, A regionalised review of potential sourcing and sustainability challenges (Bentsen og Stubak, Københavns Universitet, 2013).

› “Analysis of biomass prices, Future Danish Prices for straw, wood chips and wood pellets” (Bang et al, EA Energianalyse, 2013).

› “Technology data for advanced bioenergy fuels” (Evald et al, Force Technology, 2013).

Tender, project partners, and stakeholder involvement

The Danish Energy Agency (DEA) tendered the project in December 2012. In February 2013 COWI as main contractor, together with University of Southern Denmark, International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), and Joanneum Research Resources were selected as the consultants for the project.

With regard to the process and the project outcome emphasis has been on a transparent presentation of general assumptions, methodological approach and results. The project has faced a research area being highly complex,

methodologically very specialized, and, therefore to some extend expert

judgements has been necessary. Further, the results feed into an ongoing political debate and thus Danish key stakeholders (NGOs, business, academia, and public institutions) have been involved in the process.

Review panel

Considering these characteristics, the importance of engaging peers was clear from the very beginning and it was decided to set up a review panel of internationally acknowledged scientists.

Review Panel:

› Uwe Fritsche, IINAS

› Jannick Schmidt, 2.0 LCA consultants

› Göran Berndes, Chalmers University

› Luisa Marelli, Joint Research Centre

› Bart Dehue, Nuon/Vattenfall

Review Panel had the role of being a resource to the project and being critical reviewers (see the review statement above). Three review meetings were held in the project period. Discussions dealt with the general project setup - scope of work, and methodological approach – as well as the relevance of different biomass types and origins, size of future biomass potential, key literature and application of models to be considered.

Engaging stakeholders more broadly

Considering the overall objective of supporting political decision making, and considering the intense debate on how to most appropriately apply biomass in energy systems, engaging various stakeholders has been crucial to the project. Two stakeholder workshops were set up. Attendees were green NGOs, business

associations, private companies, universities, ministries, public agencies etc. The workshops were very well attended and provided valuable input for the project team as well as for DEA directly. At the workshops project scope and overall approach was presented and discussed. Further, focus for discussions was on the importance of assumptions made. The complexity of the project and the lack of a complete overview at the point in time when the last workshop was held made it difficult to discuss concrete results. A number of issues were further discussed bilaterally after the workshops.

Altogether the process influenced the approach to meeting challenges in the project, although outcomes of workshops have not been explicitly referred to in the report.

Project development

The project tender by the Danish Energy Agency initially included all

environmental impacts of the use of biomass for energy to be assessed in the study, and at the same time did not include analysis of the importance of developments in the Danish energy system up to 2050. However in the initial phase it the

consortium and DEA decided to reframe the scope to focus on GHG and include developments in the energy systems. As a result environmental impacts related to e.g. emissions of SOX, biodiversity or water use is not assessed here.

Chapters 2 and 3 presents project goal and scope in more detail and the approach to LCA and modelling of systems. The potentials of the overall approach to provide answers as well as the intrinsic limitations of the study are emphasized. Chapter 4 presents the inventory analysis and data. Chapter 5 presents and discusses carbon footprint results, while Chapter 6 holds and overall interpretation of results.

Appendices hold a comprehensive set of supportive core data and literature.