Although there is great potential for development, the characteristics of "minority" are difficult to change



First, basic concepts

Biomass refers to various organisms formed directly or indirectly through photosynthesis, that is, biological organisms, including animals, plants and microorganisms.

The so-called biomass energy, as the name suggests, is the energy generated by biomass, which essentially refers to the energy converted by solar energy in the form of chemical energy and stored in biomass, which is an inherent class of energy given to biological organisms by nature.

Because living things are renewable, biomass energy is renewable, and it is also a kind of environmentally friendly clean energy.

Biomass energy sources are relatively wide, the cost is relatively low, is an important part of renewable energy.

At present, according to international standards, biomass energy is divided into the following five categories: municipal waste, industrial waste, solid biomass, biogas and liquid biofuels, among which the supply of solid biomass is the most abundant.

There are many ways to use and transform biomass energy, and the way of use and transformation determines whether it has sustainable development potential.

There are many ways to use biomass energy, such as thermal chemistry, biochemistry, chemistry and physical chemistry, etc., for example, it can be directly or indirectly turned into fuel, directly burned (household cooking or heating, etc.) or converted into indirect fuel (such as burning power generation, automotive ethanol, methanol, biodiesel, aviation kerosene and biogas, etc.).

In the above utilization methods, combustion power generation has become a mainstream way, and is currently one of the most common and effective ways of biomass energy utilization.

So what is biomass power generation? Biomass power generation refers to the use of biomass energy combustion of living organisms to generate power, in fact, the conversion of biomass energy into electricity.

From the perspective of biomass power generation types, it can be mainly divided into three categories: agricultural and forestry biomass power generation, waste incineration power generation and biogas power generation.

Agricultural and forestry biomass power generation can be classified according to power generation technology, which can be divided into two categories: direct combustion power generation and mixed combustion power generation.

Waste incineration refers to the burning of waste to generate electricity, generally need to integrate biomass and waste power generation, and then build biomass and waste power integration facilities.

The above projects generally combine biomass projects with waste-to-power generation projects and can be developed in stages or synchronously.

The so-called biomass and waste-to-power integration project means that in addition to processing biomass raw materials, domestic waste will also be incinerated to generate electricity or heat.

Biogas power generation is actually very simple, is to burn biogas as a power to generate electricity.

2. Development status

At present, China's biomass energy utilization methods mainly include biomass power generation, biological liquid fuel, biomass molding fuel, biomass gas and biological hydrogen production technology.

Biomass energy resources are relatively rich, but the proportion of total energy consumption is relatively low.

At present, China has basically established the whole industrial chain of biomass power generation, including upstream, midstream and downstream industries.

The upstream industry of the biomass power generation industry chain mainly includes raw materials and equipment, including biomass raw materials and related power generation equipment, and incinerators are the most core equipment in the waste incineration treatment and power generation system.

The midstream industry of the biomass power generation industry chain is the way of biomass power generation, while the downstream industry is the power users and channels.

In recent years, China's biomass power generation industry has developed, and the installed capacity of biomass power generation has contributed 96% to waste incineration power generation and agricultural and forestry biomass power generation.

From the perspective of installed capacity, by the end of 2021, China's cumulative installed capacity of biomass power generation reached 37.98 million kilowatts, accounting for 1.6% of the total installed power generation capacity.

According to statistics, the proportion of biomass power generation in China's renewable energy generation increased from 3.4% in 2012 to 6.6% in 2021.

In 2021, China's new installed capacity of biomass power generation was 8.08 million kilowatts, accounting for 4.6% of the country's new installed capacity, and biomass power generation was 163.7 billion KWH, up 23.6% year-on-year, accounting for 2% of the whole society's electricity consumption.

According to the National Energy Administration data, in the first half of 2022, China's new installed capacity of biomass power generation reached 1.52 million kilowatts, and the cumulative installed capacity reached 39.5 million kilowatts, but the situation varies greatly across the country.

For the cumulative installed capacity, Shandong, Guangdong, Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Heilongjiang ranked the top 5, reaching 4.1 million kilowatts, 3.76 million kilowatts, 2.95 million kilowatts, 2.83 million kilowatts and 2.51 million kilowatts respectively.

For the new installed capacity, Heilongjiang, Henan, Liaoning, Shandong and Jiangxi ranked in the top 5, reaching 290,000 kilowatts, 210,000 kilowatts, 150,000 kilowatts, 150,000 kilowatts and 120,000 kilowatts respectively.

In terms of power generation, Guangdong, Shandong, Zhejiang, Jiangsu, Anhui and Henan provinces ranked the top six, reaching 9.1 billion KWH, 7.9 billion KWH, 5.5 billion KWH, 5.5 billion KWH, 5.1 billion KWH and 4.9 billion KWH respectively.

China has a high proportion of waste incineration for power generation.

At present, in China's biomass power generation structure in 2021, waste incineration power generation accounts for about 61.2%, agricultural and forestry biomass power generation accounts for about 35.5%, and biogas power generation accounts for about 3.3%.

Third, major issues

At present, China's bioenergy is still mainly used for power generation, and non-electric use is supplemented.

China's biomass power generation project operation mainly relies on electricity sales income, and relies on financial subsidies, the profit model is relatively simple, and the profit is restricted.

With the national renewable energy development fund gap continues to expand, electricity price subsidy arrears have been quite serious, and superimposed the impact of financial subsidy decline policy, biomass power generation industry development situation is not optimistic, can be described as difficult.

For agricultural and forestry biomass power generation enterprises, fuel costs account for more than 60% of their operating costs, and the production and operation situation is indeed difficult to maintain.

Specific questions are as follows:

1. The value of ecological environment has not been fully reflected

The development of bioenergy in China is mainly based on the treatment of various organic wastes in urban and rural areas, and the main goal is to protect the ecological environment, and its energy attribute has not been demonstrated.

At present, China's existing bioenergy policy is mainly to support the energy utilization of waste, and it has not paid enough attention to the ecological and environmental value of bioenergy, let alone established an institutional mechanism to realize the ecological and environmental value of bioenergy, so there are certain problems in the construction of the policy system.

2. Serious imbalance of industrial structure

Since the state supports the biomass power generation industry through the renewable energy price subsidy policy, China's biomass power generation industry has initially had a certain scale, and currently ranks first in the world, but the proportion of the power structure is still small.

On the whole, there has been little progress in the utilization of biomass in the non-power generation field in China, such as clean heating, bio-gas and liquid fuel, and many other aspects are still in the "small", fragmented and initial stage of development, and a good pattern of multiple utilization of biomass energy has not been formed.

3. Lack of innovation ability

Compared with other renewable energy industries such as wind energy and solar energy, China's biomass energy industry is very small in scale, although the industrial chain is relatively long, but the main investor is private enterprises, state-owned large-scale energy enterprises are less involved.

At present, China's biomass energy industry concentration is low, the market competitiveness is still relatively fragile, the operating efficiency is very limited, and the lack of sufficient financial strength has led to a serious lack of innovation ability on the whole, which restricts industrial technological progress and business model innovation.

It is expected that the state's renewable energy price subsidy policy will gradually step off the stage, and definitely strengthen the market-oriented reform system and mechanism, China's biomass energy industry must adjust the development ideas, and constantly innovate the development mechanism and business model to adapt to the strengthening market-oriented trend.

Fourth, development trend

In August 2021, the National Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Finance and the National Energy Administration jointly issued the "Work Plan for the construction of biomass power generation Projects in 2021", which generally clarified the overall idea of "compensation by collection, central and local sharing, classified management, and stable development", focusing on "classified management" to promote the stable and healthy development of the biomass power generation industry.

From the trend point of view, with the rapid development of China's biomass power generation industry, the proportion of installed power generation capacity in the installed capacity of renewable energy power generation may gradually rise, but the overall proportion is not likely to be too high, and its "minority" characteristics are not expected to disappear.

In the future, China's biomass power generation industry will usher in opportunities, and the industrial chain will gradually improve.

Judging from the trend of energy development in the next few decades, China's energy structure adjustment is bound to give priority to the development of renewable energy, of which biomass energy development prospects are relatively clear.

1. Transformation and upgrading have become a trend

Biomass pure power generation needs to overcome all difficulties, make full use of heat network, heat storage (cold), mobile heating (steam, hot water) and other advanced heating technology and means, actively expand and cultivate the heat market, from pure power generation to cogeneration.

For cogeneration enterprises, it is necessary to establish a business model based on heating and supplemented by power generation, and continue to implement and land the national "wall sale of electricity" policy, and gradually transform into a comprehensive energy service provider.

To this end, the government should make full use of the existing renewable energy price subsidy policy, such as according to the power generation project heat and power ratio priority to fully issue electricity subsidies, and actively encourage biomass power generation enterprises to transform into cogeneration enterprises, to achieve normal profitability, improve market competitiveness, and then ease the pressure of national electricity price subsidies.

2. Market reform is inevitable

It is foreseeable that China's biomass energy industry chain will gradually improve, and the links of mechanized production, collection, post-natal treatment (especially compression molding) storage and transportation will become increasingly close and gradually develop in the direction of scale and market.

In view of the future development trend, China's biomass energy enterprises should give full play to the flexibility of load regulation of cogeneration projects, actively participate in the power spot market and power auxiliary service market transactions, and become a true sense of self-improvement, self-regulation, self-development of the market main body.

In order to achieve the above goals, biomass energy enterprises can actively participate in the flexible transformation of power generation projects and the construction of energy storage facilities, the project will be centralized bundling, or through the sale of electricity company agents.

During the "14th Five-Year Plan" period, the state will carry out market-oriented demonstration of domestic waste incineration power generation in the Yangtze River Delta and Pearl River Delta regions with developed economies and relatively complete garbage charging systems.

According to the national plan, in the above areas, the on-grid price of new domestic waste incineration power generation projects will be introduced into the market bidding mechanism in order to accumulate experience in the sustainable operation of biomass power generation projects.

It is expected that China will also support the biomass power generation industry in terms of policy, of which the electricity price policy will be further improved to promote enterprises to achieve normal operation and improve market competitiveness.

3. Resource potential needs to be tapped

China is rich in available biomass resources, including crop straw, livestock and poultry manure, agricultural product processing waste, forest product processing waste, domestic waste and organic sewage.

As far as agricultural and forestry waste, energy forestry and other energy crops are concerned, the resource potential is relatively huge, and there is certainly room and potential for utilization in the future.

In addition, China can also plant agricultural plants in combination with ecological construction, which can help the development of biomass power generation industry.

China is a large agricultural country with abundant biomass resources such as crop straw, agricultural product processing residues, forestry residues, energy crops and domestic waste.

At present, China's crop planting area is about 160 million hectares, with an annual output of about 700 million tons of biomass.

China's forest area is close to 200 million hectares, and the amount of biomass resources available every year is about 800 to 1 million tons.

China has more than 54 million hectares of suitable forest land, which can be used to grow agricultural plants in conjunction with ecological development.

At present, biomass energy accounts for only about 1% of total energy consumption in China, while biomass energy accounts for 12% of final energy consumption in the European Union.

4. Contribute to addressing climate change

The development of China's biomass power generation industry can help achieve the goal of "double carbon", which is conducive to environmental protection and ecological civilization construction.

Carbon emission is one of the important indicators to analyze the future development of energy.

As we all know, fossil energy carbon emissions are very obvious, and in contrast, biomass power generation per kilowatt-hour carbon emissions are only 18 grams, compared with fossil energy advantages are very prominent.

At present, China's biomass resources for energy utilization is about 461 million tons, and the total carbon emission reduction is about 218 million tons.

If China can use 40% of its biomass energy, it can replace 400 million tons of standard coal every year and reduce carbon dioxide emissions by more than 1 billion tons.

From the perspective of resource enrichment degree and access methods, the resource enrichment degree and fuel access methods of fossil energy such as coal, oil and natural gas are relatively simple, while biomass resources are relatively dispersed, and the collection, processing, transportation methods and channels are diversified.

At present, because China's biomass production, harvest and post-natal treatment has not formed a complete industrial chain, but has not achieved industrial scale, there are many difficulties in raw materials (such as straw) collection, storage, transportation and other aspects, and the cost is relatively high.

If China can make large-scale and mature use of biomass energy, it will not only alleviate the problem of insufficient energy supply capacity, but also have a very important positive impact on tackling climate change and accelerating energy transition.

The realization of the "dual carbon" goal is an important driving force for the development of China's biomass energy industry, and if combined with bioenergy and carbon capture and storage (BECCS) technology, biomass energy will create a negative carbon emission effect, which will contribute to China's response to climate change.