In recent years, China has made rapid development in the development of biomass energy, but in general, there is a certain gap with developed countries in terms of technical level and policy measures. At the policy level, there is still room for improvement. For the healthy development of the biomass energy industry, the following section will discuss some policies that need to be improved, and the next article will discuss another part of “China’s bioenergy measures to be strengthened”.
1. Improve the market access system and break the industry monopoly
Biomass energy development and utilization products are diverse, including biomass power generation, gas, liquid fuels, and solid briquette fuels. The market that needs to enter is also diversified. It is very important to establish a standardized market environment and market mechanism for energy products. For example, bio-liquid fuels cannot freely enter the fuel sales system at present. It is necessary to study and formulate regulations and requirements for bio-liquid fuels to freely enter the oil sales system, so that bio-liquid fuels that meet the quality requirements can freely enter the fuel sales system.
In 2007 and 2010, the country successively promulgated the national GB/T20828-2007 standard for biodiesel (BD100) and the fuel standard (GB/T25199-2010) prepared by blending biodiesel and petrochemical diesel. From the central to the local level, a series of policies and regulations to support the development of the biodiesel industry have been introduced one after another. Since 2008, some private enterprises have produced qualified environmental protection products. However, because the sales system of state-owned fuel giants refuses to accept biodiesel from private enterprises, this kind of cheap, high-quality, energy-saving and environmentally friendly fuel can only be stored in warehouses, and many manufacturers are also facing similar difficulties.
Biomass energy products do not yet have the price advantage to compete with traditional energy products, but they have social benefits such as renewable energy and emission reduction. Therefore, a sound and standardized market access system is the basis and premise to ensure the healthy development of the biomass energy industry. The current market access system for biomass energy products needs to be improved, and the implementation of policies should be more resolute and thorough. At present, some major energy sales channels are dominated by traditional large petrochemical companies, who have no motivation to develop the new energy industry, making it difficult for bioenergy to enter gas stations for sales. Therefore, it is necessary to standardize and improve the market access system of various biomass energy products in a legal form, so that the production, sales and use of biomass energy products can be legally abided by, and pave the way for the development of bioenergy.
2. Improve the industrial service system
Accelerate the formulation and improvement of biomass energy technology and product standards, and form a unified, standardized, biomass energy technology standard system in line with China’s national conditions: establish and improve the quality control and supervision system of biomass energy products, and form an effective quality supervision mechanism to improve product and service quality : Establish and improve the biomass energy information statistics system, and strengthen the capacity building of intermediary institutions such as biomass energy technical guidance, engineering consulting, and information services.
3. Improve supporting regulations and implementation rules
Improve the policy system, study and formulate industrial policies for the comprehensive utilization of biomass energy. All provinces (autonomous regions and municipalities) should incorporate the development and utilization of biomass energy into their local energy plans, formulate biomass energy development plans and implementation plans, and guide the development and utilization of biomass energy in their regions. Biomass energy has the characteristics of diversification, the development and utilization of energy products are different, and the current legal system can only make principled provisions on the measures to develop biomass energy. This requires relevant departments and local governments to issue corresponding administrative regulations and technical standards in a timely manner to refine and supplement the legal systems determined in the Renewable Energy Law. Further improve the corresponding supporting regulations and implementation rules, and form a biomass energy legal system that integrates the Basic Law and supporting guidelines. The Basic Law mainly refers to the “Renewable Energy Law of the People’s Republic of China”, which is a general overview and regulation of the development of the biomass energy industry, and is also the basis and guiding basis for the formulation of various supporting standards. Supporting guidelines refer to specific regulations for specific regions, specific products, and specific projects, such as the “Expansion Pilot Program of Ethanol Gasoline for Vehicles” formulated to expand the use of ethanol gasoline, and the “Trial Measures for the Management of Renewable Energy Power Generation Prices and Expense Sharing” formulated to encourage renewable energy power generation. Some of these regulations have been formulated and are being implemented, some are still in the trial stage, and some have not yet been issued. They are all part of the complete biomass energy legal system.
4. Promote the legalization of economic policies
In recent years, the Chinese government has also increased financial subsidies for the biomass energy industry. But there are still some problems: firstly, it is necessary to adjust the investment method and investment structure, and gradually increase the proportion of incentive funds invested; secondly, the support is not enough. It is necessary to increase the government’s investment in biomass energy enterprises, farmers, and research and development, and expand the coverage of public finance.
At present, the economic policies for the bioenergy industry are not stable enough, and it is difficult to play a sustainable incentive role for economic entities. When perfecting the legal system of biomass energy, the relevant content and specific provisions of economic incentive measures should be written into the law and implemented as a mandatory strict standard to stimulate the enthusiasm of investors by legalizing economic policies. At the same time, bioenergy is still in the initial stage of industrialization and has not yet formed a large economic scale. The bottleneck of its development lies in the relatively high production cost, which makes it difficult to compete with petrochemical products and requires the state to provide policy subsidies, as well as policy support in terms of finance, credit, taxation and price, to promote the development of bioenergy at the national level.
Improve national fiscal and taxation support policies. Specifically, governments at all levels have increased investment in the development and utilization of biomass energy, supported the construction of rural biomass energy projects, and focused on improving rural living conditions for energy use. Improve the fiscal and taxation support policies to support the utilization of biomass energy, improve the implementation of biomass energy conversion, the price policy of electricity, liquid fuel and other products, improve the financial support policy, and support the development of small and medium-sized biomass energy enterprises. Establish and improve the system and mechanism to support the connection of distributed biomass power generation to the power grid and grid-connected operation, as well as the operation mechanism of biomass oil products, to create favorable conditions for biomass energy products to enter the market.
6. Improve the mechanism and measures for the compulsory use of biofuels
Improve the mechanism and measures for the mandatory use of biofuels and expand the market size of biofuels, governments at all levels should combine the comprehensive utilization of well-known biomass waste and environmental pollution control to formulate measures to prohibit the burning of straw in rural areas and shut down and transform small coal-fired boilers in urban areas. In the construction of new energy demonstration cities and green energy demonstration counties, the utilization of biomass energy will be an important choice, and a number of demonstration areas for the large-scale development and utilization of biomass energy will be formed.