Assessing GHG default emissions from biofuels in EU legislation : review of input database to calculate "Default GHG emissions", following expert consultation 22-23 November 2011, Ispra (Italy)

The EU legislation contains a set of mandatory targets specific for the EU transport sector which aims at achieving the overall objective of a European sustainably fuelled transport system. In particular, Directives 2009/28/EC (Renewable Energy Directive) and 2009/30/EC (Fuel Quality Directive) fix a threshold of 35% savings of GHG emissions for biofuels and bioliquids and set out the rules for calculating the greenhouse impact of biofuels, bioliquids and their fossil fuels comparators. Further, the Commission is working on a report and possible legislative proposal that could have similar or the same provisions for other bioenergy sources (biogas and biomass). To help economic operators in calculating GHG emission savings, default and typical values are also listed in the Annexes of the two directives, which were calculated on the basis of the JEC (JRC-EUCAR-CONCAWE consortium) database of input data in its version of 31 July 2008, following a consultation process with stakeholders launched by the Commission. According to article 19.7 in the Renewable Energy Directive and 7d.7 in the Fuel Quality Directive, the Commission can also adapt default values to technical and scientific progress by updating the existing values and by adding additional pathways. On request of the Commission's DG ENER, the JRC worked on the update of the existing input database, and the list of pathways in the Directives will therefore likely be modified accordingly. This report aims at describing the JRC assumptions made to build-up the dataset used for the calculation of default GHG emissions for the different pathways in annexes of the Directives.