The Climate, Energy and Building Ministry has announced that the energy sector has voluntarily agreed on an industry commitment to sustainable biomass energy production. The agreement includes requirements on sustainable forestry and the emission of CO2 in the supply chain of biomass material for energy generation.
The agreement, signed by the energy companies Dansk Energi and Dansk Fjernvarme, comes in response to a call from Rasmus Helveg Petersen, the climate energy and building minister, to use only sustainably produced biomass material for energy production.
Pushing out coal
Energy from biomass, using fuel derived from living or recently living organisms, is set to play an increasingly important role in Denmark’s move to using 100 percent renewable fuel sources for energy and transportation systems. It has the advantage over certain other renewable energy sources of being able to be stored and used when it is a still day and wind energy production goes into standstill, for example.
Petersen emphasised that greater use of biomass was beneficial to the environment and that the new agreement ensured its environmentally-friendly credentials. “Now the energy sector has taken responsibility for ensuring that the biomass that will push coal out of our power stations will be sustainable,” he sad
”And that is important because there should be no doubt that it benefits the climate when we replace coal and natural gas with wooden pellets and chips. The sector agreement is a big and important step in completely the right direction. The climate is the winner with this new industry commitment.”
