New opportunities for biomass energy development in the context of carbon neutrality

Therefore, biomass energy may not contribute the largest proportion of electricity generation in the entire new power system in the future, but it can certainly play a unique and critical role in the clean supply of electricity and heat.

We should promote diversified development and utilization of biomass energy

The development and utilization of biomass energy is pluralistic. Biomass power generation is the most mature, the largest development of modern biomass energy utilization technology, Nordic countries, Germany and the United States in the world's leading level. China's biomass power generation started late, and the current scale of development is still limited. As mentioned above, by the end of 2021, the cumulative installed capacity of biomass power generation in China has reached 37.98 million kilowatts, accounting for about 3.6% of the total installed capacity of renewable energy power generation, and biomass power generation is 163.7 billion KWH, accounting for about 6.6% of the total renewable energy power generation. From the cumulative grid-connected biomass power generation, China is currently dominated by waste incineration power generation and agricultural and forestry biomass power generation, and biogas power generation accounts for only about 3%. The technology classification of biomass power generation is rich, including direct combustion, mixed combustion, waste incineration, biogas, gasification power generation, etc. In the initial application of biomass power generation technology, it is necessary to promote diversified development and pilot projects, so as to find out the role and advantages and disadvantages of different biomass power generation technologies in different application scenarios, and then promote the large-scale application of biomass power generation technology in different scenarios according to local conditions. At the same time, if BECCS (Bioenergy and carbon capture and storage) technology can be applied at scale in the future, biomass power generation will have the potential to create negative carbon emissions, which can make a great contribution to achieving carbon neutrality goals.

Biomass clean heating is another potential application scenario. As mentioned above, biomass energy has unique advantages in providing clean electricity and clean heat, so in the future, on the one hand, it can promote the transformation and upgrading of biomass power generation to cogeneration according to local conditions, and on the other hand, it can develop biomass boilers based on agricultural and forestry biomass and biomass molding fuel to provide central heating for densely populated large and medium-sized cities and urban areas. As far as biomass solid molding fuel technology is concerned, Europe and the United States are at the global leader level, mainly due to the relatively perfect standard system, and the formation of the entire industrial chain from raw material collection, storage, pretreatment to the production, distribution and application of molding fuel. Europe is the main consumption area of biomass molding fuel, of which Sweden biomass molding fuel heating accounts for about 70% of its total heating energy consumption. This shows the importance of establishing a complete industrial chain and the huge potential of biomass energy in clean heating.

At present, bio-liquid fuels have become the most promising alternative fuels, and in the field of transportation power that electrification cannot solve, bio-liquid fuels provide valuable zero-carbon solutions. In the field of biodiesel, China's related industry technology is in the first echelon in the world, and it is the second largest source country of biodiesel technology in the world after the United States, and China's biodiesel patent applications account for 17% of the world's total (as of September 2021). In 2021, China's biodiesel production is about 1.5 million tons, accounting for about 3.6% of global production, after the European Union, Indonesia, the United States, Brazil and other economies. In the biological aviation fuel technology, China has made a breakthrough, to achieve the biomass hemicelluloses and cellulose co-conversion synthetic biological aviation fuel, has now taken the lead in the international demonstration application stage. In addition, second-generation ethanol as a vehicle and aviation fuel, biological methanol, green ammonia as a vehicle and shipping fuel (especially ocean), are biological liquid fuel in the future with potential application scenarios, related technologies are in the breakthrough or experimental stage. In this regard, the "14th Five-Year Plan" renewable energy Development Plan proposes to support the research and development and promotion of advanced technological equipment in the field of biomass liquid fuel, which will promote the breakthrough of biological liquid fuel technology in different scenarios from "test" to "application".

Bio-natural gas is an important zero-carbon energy that can be used in power, heating, transportation and other fields. As early as 2019, the National Development and Reform Commission, the National Energy Administration and other ten ministries and commissions jointly issued the "Guiding Opinions on Promoting the Development of Bio-gas Industrialization", which proposed that the annual output of bio-gas should exceed 20 billion cubic meters by 2030. According to relevant estimates, China's biological natural gas can be exploited as much as 60 billion cubic meters per year, but as of 2020, China's actual annual output of biological natural gas is less than 100 million cubic meters. This shows that the development of bio-gas in China is still in its infancy, and it also means that there is great potential. Also as proposed in the "14th Five-Year Plan" renewable energy development Plan, we should effectively make good use of the advantages of abundant resources of agriculture and forestry industry in China, coordinate the concentrated production areas of grain, forest and livestock, establish an industrial system with the county as a unit, and actively carry out biological natural gas demonstration projects. In this process, it is necessary to build a large-scale (tens of millions of cubic meters) biological gas project, so that through the grid connection with the city gas pipeline network, diversified applications (vehicles, boilers, power generation), greatly promote the large-scale use of biological gas, accelerate the decarbonization process of the energy system.