IEA Bioenergy Task 40 has been active since 2004 when it was first established with its key original focus being international bioenergy trade. Over time this task got expanded to also include market issues more broadly and to a certain extent also policy and sustainability aspects. This largely resulted from how analysis of trade and market issues tend to require understanding of cross-cutting themes such as business practices, regulatory frameworks, and technology. In the lead-up to the 2019-2021 triennium, this cross-cutting “horizontal” characteristic of Task 40 was made more explicit with focus on deployment as the central Task theme, indicating the ambition to analyze and mitigate obstacles to get sustainable biobased value chains off the ground. It is worth noting that the focus has broadened from “bioenergy” to “biobased value chains”. A key characteristic of bioenergy is that it connects to and interacts with many economic sectors, including the energy market but also agriculture, forestry, waste management, and bioproducts, i.e., the bioeconomy.
Consequently, the following Task 40 work programmes have embraced the horizontal role with the ambition to work across many different aspects of biobased value chains. This has been reflected both in the topics chosen, as well as in the work methods. Our current Task work is carried out through Intertask and Task projects, including:
- Regional Transition Task project looks into mobilizing feedstocks and setting up biobased value chains
- Bioeconomy Synergies Task project covers synergies and market perspectives for ecosystem-, bioenergy-, biobased materials- and nutrient service to drive the deployment of biogenic carbon networks
- BECCUS Intertask project aim at analysing near- to medium term deployment of bioenergy with carbon capture and use (BECCU), and with carbon capture and storage (BECCS),
- Renewable Hydrogen Intertask project focuses on promising biobased value chains with renewable hydrogen deployment and their assessment
All projects have in common that they address how bioenergy can sustainably contribute to global energy system defossilisation, i.e., achieving the goal of the Paris Agreement. The proposed work program for the 2025-2027 triennium builds upon the Task 40 work carried out in the two previous triennia as well as linking to concurring megatrends in the energy, climate, and sustainability realms. With solar and wind becoming cost-effective globally, the electrification of energy and transport systems and their integration (sector coupling) gained prominence, and a renewable carbon economy appeared as a long-term vision, which not only reduces CO2 emissions but makes use of carbon, beyond burning for energy.
Bioenergy combined with carbon capture and storage, in particular, also known as bio-CCS or BECCS, is a concept that has been discussed in climate change mitigation research for quite some time. Task 40 has successfully looked into BECCS as a negative emissions technology over the past triennia. In the last two years its implementation has become the subject of serious consideration within governments and among private actors and we see the number of activities and projects is on the rise. This trend is to be expected to continue, and we will see more projects of this kind. Hence Task 40 will consolidate and intensify its BECCS and also BECCU considerations to provide guidance on the realisation of these technologies. As carbon capture is directly linked to deployment it is one core aspect of our task.
The circular sustainable bioeconomy is increasingly recognised as the “umbrella” concept (paradigm) under which biomass has a role to play, and this role needs to be elaborated in consideration of the transformation of bioenergy systems towards this role. Here Task 40 sees its mission in describing the success factors and challenges of the transition from fossil to biobased value chains but also in setting up biobased value chains per se and the impact of the regionalisation of biobased value chains. Thereby, the challenge is to identify where biobased energy carriers and materials can best complement and support decarbonisation efforts based either on direct electricity, carbon capture and storage, or hydrogen derived from renewable sources. Furthermore, the rapid cost reductions in electricity production from solar and wind implies the necessity to shift the focus of bioenergy business models: away from the “amount of energy produced” being the key source of revenue and more towards multi-product/service value chains where energy is generated as one of several products and services across the whole value chain. This supports a broad range of sustainability targets, from climate change adaptation to carbon management, i.e., both CO2 removal and utilisation of (biogenic) CO2 for different forms of products.
The Deployment Task will have three core areas of operation which include both Intertask and Task projects considering the various biobased value chains, markets, and applications, and sees itself as “horizontal” among IEA Bioenergy Tasks. Moreover Task 40 has established successful collaboration with other IEA TCPs and intends to consolidate and intensify the collaboration in the next triennium (cross-TCP collaboration). The next triennium work will be structured in three work packages:
WP1 Setting up and deployment of biogenic carbon value chains (e.g. structure, transitions, resilience)
1.1 Roadmap for biogenic carbon value chains
1.2 Case studies of defossilising carbon in industry
WP2 BECCUS applications and projects deployment
2.1 Showcasing Task 40 BECCUS projects – BECCUS technologies, concepts and value chains
2.2 Continued BECCUS Intertask Project (ITP) 3.0 – carbon management around BECCUS
WP3 Biogenic circular carbon economy
3.1 Analysis of resilience of new biogenic carbon value chains