Biofuels Production and Consumption in Belgium

July 12, 2022

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by Robert Malina and Freddy Navarro (Hasselt University/IEA Bioenergy Task 39) ... With 104 PJ, biofuels covered about 6.5% of the final energy consumed in Belgium, while other renewable sources, excluding nuclear, covered 7.2 PJ, which highlights the great dependency of the country on fossil sources. The transport sector represented about 20% of total energy consumption in Belgium in 2020, dominated by the road transport sector. Biofuels’ energy contribution to this sector is lower than 10%, with biodiesel the highest contributor (83% of road transport bioenergy consumption). The energy consumption of other non-road transport sectors (aviation, in-land navigation, and rail) represents less than 5% of the total energy consumed by the transport sector and is currently covered almost entirely with fossil resources. For instance, the rail sector covered about 86% of its energy requirements (6 PJ) using electricity generated from nuclear sources (39%), natural gas (34%), biofuels (6%), and other renewable sources (21%, mostly wind and solar) [2]. Thus, biofuels contributed less than 0.4 PJ to the energy requirements of this sector.

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Biofuels contribution to the industry sector and other energy sectors is also relatively low (8.3%, and 6.7%, respectively), with primary solid biofuels (PSBs) being the dominant biofuel. No biofuels were used in other non-energy sectors. The contribution of PSB and other biofuels to the transport sector is negligible (≈0.1%).

If bunker fuels are included, the total energy consumption in Belgium in 2020 would increase by 294 PJ, which is almost the energy consumed by non-energy sectors in the country by the same year [3]. This is due to the outsized importance of the Port of Antwerp.

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In this year, biofuels production in the country was about 1.7 times as high as biofuels imports. On the other hand, exports amounted to about 18% of domestic biofuels production. PSBs are the most important biofuel, contributing more than half of the total biofuel energy input in the country. Biodiesel is the second most important biofuel with 22% of contribution. The total biofuel energy inputs in
Belgium reached 151.87 PJ. About 12% of biofuels inputs in Belgium were exported, leaving 134.29 PJ available.

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About 60% of the gross available biofuels (81 PJ) were transformed prior final consumption. Thus, biogasoline (liquid biofuels suitable to replace gasoline or be blended with it) and biodiesel were blended with conventional fossil fuels almost entirely (>99%) and used for the road transportation sector. Biodiesel and biogasoline contributed 24 PJ and 5 PJ to the road transportation sector, respectively. On the other hand, almost 30 PJ, 15.5 PJ, 6 PJ, and 0.25 PJ of PSB, renewable municipal waste (RMW), biogases, and OLF were used to generate heat and power. Moreover, only a small portion of biogas for transformation (<1 %, 49 TJ) is blended with natural gas. The biofuel-based generated heat and power (21.7 PJ) covers about 6.4% of the total heat and power generation in the country. In Belgium, about half of the entire generated heat and power is used by the industry sector, about half is used by other energy sectors, and <2% for the transport sector.

About 47.6 PJ of PSB (62%) was directly used and divided almost equally to be used by the industry and other sectors. On the other hand, about 40% of the gross available biogas (4 PJ) was also directly used by the industry (1.6 PJ) and other (2.4 PJ) sectors.

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From 2011 to 2020, production capacity has decreased from 48 PJ to 33 PJ. Biodiesel contributes the most to total production capacity (54%), followed by biogasoline (38%). Comparing liquid biofuels production capacities with primary production in 2020, biodiesel and
biogasoline, facilities were operating at 48%, and 88% of production capacity, respectively.

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Most of the biodiesel in Belgium is derived from rapeseed. However, its contribution has decreased from 2014 to 2018. For bioethanol, wheat is the highest-used feedstock, followed by corn [6].

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Biofuels are used in order to reduce carbon dioxide emissions of human activity by replacing conventional fossilbased fuels. Therefore, biofuels must have lower lifecycle carbon emissions than their conventional, fossil-derived counter-parts. An existing assessment of the carbon dioxide emissions of the road transport sector and the biofuel consumption in Belgium indicates that GHG emissions decreased by 6% from 2008 to 2019. In the same period, the share of biofuel consumption in this sector increased from 0 to 5.5%

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The available biogasoline and biodiesel in Belgium in 2020 was enough to cover 8% and 10% of the energy needs of motor gasoline and gas/diesel in the road-transport sector, respectively. Overall, both biofuels covered 9.3% of the total gasoline and diesel energy requirements, which means that the country requires a small effort to fulfill with the European Union target.

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Recently, Belgium joined Denmark, France, and the Netherlands to ban biofuels derived from palm oil or soy from 2022 onwards due to issues related to deforestation, loss of biodiversity, and human rights violations [8]. Unlike palm oil, the soybean restriction could compromise the biodiesel availability in the country (see Figure 5) and hinder the fulfilment of targets stated by the European Union. Regarding advanced biofuels, legislation in Belgium allows for double counting of those fuels when using them in the transport sector and established a target for covering 0.1% of its total transport energy with them from 2020 onwards [9].

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In the region of Flanders in the north of Belgium, there is a focus on bio-based value chains from available ligno-based raw materials with projects such as the Flanders Biobased Valley or the Lignin-based Biorefinery. Other projects, such as the BIG-Cluster, collaborate with institutions from other countries. Furthermore, research centers imec and VITO, together with industrial partners Bekaert, Colruyt
Group, DEME and John Cockerill undertake research projects related to green hydrogen production [12].

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in the region of Wallonia include renewable hydrogen generation (H2GREEN, HYSTACK, HYDEAI, HYFLUX, WallonHY, H2Hub Wallonia), waste recovery (LOOP FC, AGRIWASTE VALUE), local renewable energy integration (INTERESTS, TTCOGEN, ENERBIO), microorganism-based biofuel generation (ALGOTECH, PERSEPHONE, COOPILOT BIOMGT), or energy-oriented technologies (OPTI-AGV, CLEARPOWER, PEPSE). In the region of Brussels, the TTCogen project aims to valorize biomass though gasification and cogeneration. As a Belgian-wide collaboration, BE-HyFE is aiming to enhance the expertise in Belgium with regard to addressing key hydrogen challenges, including the transition to green hydrogen [14]. READ MORE

References
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