Experience in Other Countries

Bioenergy is intrinsically linked to energy, environment, agriculture, and forestry issues. As such, it needs to receive consideration within various policy agendas. Unfortunately, there is often a lack of integration across the agendas of different government agencies, which hinders the understanding of opportunities and constraints related to bioenergy, and the convergence of incentives to promote its development (Silveira 2005).

Bioenergy incentives must address the production of fuels, establishment of biomass-based plants, and end-use services and technologies. A variety of market-based mechanisms can be applied at different stages of the fuel chain to stimulate development. In the case of forestry, environmental and market incentives can promote better integration of forest management and industrial activities. In the case of energy crops, mechanisms need to be devised to encourage farmers to grow biomass resources in a sustainable manner.

While many of the scenarios in the United States are similar to those in other countries, the policies used to promote bioenergy can be very different. Examples of policies that are used or need to be implemented globally include:

Market-oriented policy tools:

• Effective regulation of electricity and heat markets
• Green certificates (give a premium to electricity generation from renewable sources)
• Emissions trading (internalizes the costs of carbon emissions improving the competitiveness of bioenergy and other renewables)
• Procurement (creates demand for specific services, i.e. sustainable energy)
• Cooperation in projects based on the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) and Joint Implementation (JI) according to the Kyoto Protocol

Examples of other policy tools that can be used to promote bioenergy:

• Consultation and voluntary activities with industries (i.e. energy intensive industries, energy companies, building companies, etc.)
• Tax differentiation to increase efficiency and sustainability (i. e. carbon taxes)
• Standards and regulatory instruments (i.e. biofuel standards to create commodity markets)
• Research and development (i.e. cost reduction for efficient technologies and commercialization, improvement of yields in biomass crops, improvement of cost-efficiency in forest management)
• Regional and local energy offices for providing advice
• Information campaigns (i.e. for awareness)
• Incentives (i.e. for technology shift in homes)

Here are two examples showing how these policies have affected bioenergy development in other developed countries.

• United Kingdom
• Sweden