South Korean power companies sign MOU to build sustainable biomass ecosystem

In South Korea, six power generation companies that use biomass as fuel recently gathered at Hanwha Building in Seoul and signed a “MOU for Building a Sustainable Biomass Industry Ecosystem” to strengthen the biomass industry ecosystem. This business agreement was prepared to secure the sustainability of biomass, an eco-friendly renewable energy, and thereby contribute to the supply and spread of renewable energy using biomass. Six companies are participating: Gwangyang Green Energy, CG & Daesan Power, OCI SE, GS EPS, Poseung Green Power, and Hanwha Energy (in alphabetical order).

With this business agreement, these companies formed the “Biomass Development Council” to establish a third-party certification system to verify the sustainability of biomass, strengthen the distribution market, and develop technology, etc.

In order to join the global trend of strengthening the ecological, social, and economic sustainability of biomass, such as the EU’s Renewable Energy Directive (RED Ⅲ), which was revised in October last year, the council also plans to form a ‘Third Party Certification Committee’. The council plans to establish an industry-led voluntary and preemptive certification system by applying the EU’s SBP (Sustainable Biomass Program), etc., and cooperate with policy authorities on the transition to a nationally recognized certification system and a global certification system in the future.

And as the issue of healthy wood being distributed as unused forest biomass has recently been raised, the council is committed to actively contributing to strengthening verification and market surveillance. Unused forest biomass refers to fuel made from wood that does not meet log standards or is difficult to collect and therefore cannot be used easily.

In addition, they plan to improve awareness of Bio-SRF (Biomass-Solid Refuse Fuel), a resource recycling fuel that regenerates waste wood that has no useful value into energy by turning it into fuel instead of simply landfilling or incinerating it. Bio-SRF has a strong negative perception because it is waste-based, but through this council, we aim to build social consensus by objectively verifying and widely publicizing its practical effects.

In addition, companies participating in the council plan to discover and jointly pursue technology development tasks to utilize various types of biomass as fuel beyond the commonly known lignocellulosic biomass.