Slow development of biomass power generation

The development and utilization of biomass energy is nothing new at home and abroad. As the fourth largest energy source in the world after coal, oil, and natural gas, why has there not been any large-scale and rational utilization in the country? Why did the related self-owned company still find a profit model? Why has renewable energy, which has been used by mankind since ancient times, been the “chicken rib” in the development of new energy in China?

Developed 20 years ago

Biomass energy has a wide range of utility, and can exist in the form of biogas, compressed solid fuel, production of fuel alcohol, thermal cracking production of biodiesel, etc., applied in various fields of the national economy. Compared with new energy sources such as wind power and solar energy, biomass energy has unique advantages. The diversity of biomass energy products is unmatched by other new energy sources.

In theory, the use of biomass energy is a sunrise industry. The biomass resources on the earth are relatively abundant, and from our point of view, there are at least 650 million tons of crop straws each year. If 60% of them are used for biomass power generation, they will be equivalent to the power generation of 8 Three Gorges power stations. The amount of farmers can increase by 80 billion to 100 billion yuan each year.

From the aspect of biomass power generation, China began to build biomass power plants 20 years ago. Until 2006, the state introduced the “Renewable Energy Law,” and announced the subsidies for the on-grid tariffs for biomass power generation. At this point, China’s biomass Power generation has entered a period of rapid development. As of the end of 2012, China's cumulative biomass power generation capacity reached 5,819 MW (MW).

Card neck raw material

However, behind the seeming perfection, the development of bio-energy has always been tepid. According to statistics, bioenergy accounts for only 13% of all disposable energy sources worldwide. It is not difficult to see from the “12th Five-Year Plan” new energy plan in China that compared with new energy such as hydropower and wind power, the input of bioenergy is still weak.

The reason why biomass energy has not grown in China for a long time is that raw material collection is difficult to bear the brunt of the obstacles. China has abundant biomass energy resources. According to the report on renewable energy development strategy of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, China's biomass energy resources are two times that of hydropower and 3.5 times that of wind energy. At present, the biomass energy that can be developed every year is about 1.2 billion tons of standard coal, which is about 1/3 of the country's total annual energy consumption. However, the distribution of raw materials for biomass in China is not concentrated, and it is difficult to collect most of the crop stalks that make up the bulk of biomass materials. If it is purchased from farmers, it is easy to increase the collection cost and it is not worthwhile.

Why is it so difficult to collect raw materials? Most people attribute the reason to the low purchase price. Someone calculated such an account. Take corn stalks as an example, the power plant pays 200 to 260 yuan per ton, and the acquisition station only buys around 100 yuan. A farmer's 8 acres of corn can produce more than 3 tons of straw, sent to the power plant can sell six or seven hundred yuan, while the acquisition point to go closer to only sell more than 300 yuan. Excluding oil and freight, not counting the time spent on labor and time, they did not make much. Therefore, farmers prefer to burn out to make fertilizer.

In response to these conditions, at the end of May 2013, the National Development and Reform Commission, together with the Ministry of Environmental Protection and the Ministry of Agriculture, issued the "Notice on Strengthening the Comprehensive Utilization of Crop Straw and the Prohibition of Burning." The notice pointed out that the government will “increase the subsidies for harvesting crops and returning straw to farms to collect integrated agricultural machinery” and “study the establishment of subsidies for straw returning or bale collection”. According to expert analysis, this will increase the enthusiasm of farmers to properly dispose of straw, which will help biomass energy companies solve the existing problem of raw material guarantees and make straw collection routine and large-scale.

After making up for the shortcomings

Although the "Circular on Strengthening the Comprehensive Utilization of Crop Straw and the Prohibition of Burning" has been issued, the measures for the "pre-subsidy and post-construction" project for biomass energy projects have always been extremely prone to malpractice. Experts stated that not only there are certain defects in the subsidy method, but the entire mechanism lacks the participation of energy authorities and technical departments. How the system is more conducive to supervision, fairness and openness still need to be further improved.

At present, 80% of China's biomass energy projects rely on state subsidies. Each province has no less than 50 projects, with an average investment of nearly 2 million yuan per project country. Such a large sum of investment, our country's subsidy policy is to first invest money to build, after the completion of the project for a simple acceptance, but later maintenance, supervision and other procedures are rarely interested. At present, apart from earning money from large state-owned enterprises with abundant funds and excellent channels, there are still few companies that have truly profited from the biomass energy business.

In addition, China's financial subsidies still have a certain threshold of entry. The Ministry of Finance stipulates that the registered capital of enterprises must be more than 10 million yuan, and the amount of straw consumed every year must be 10,000 tons or more. Only then can they receive subsidies of 140 yuan/ton. This is undoubtedly a difficult barrier for SMEs.

It is understood that, contrary to the form of China's subsidies, Germany's biomass energy construction is a "first construction after subsidies" approach. When an enterprise or an individual invests in a material energy project, it is an individual's commercial behavior. The government can lend to help the construction, but it does not provide subsidies. After the project is completed, every time electricity is generated, or every cubic meter of methane is produced, the government starts to subsidize the production capacity accordingly. This not only encourages enterprises to use and develop biomass energy, but also effectively avoids the “face engineering” that leads to the government. The waste of subsidies.

In addition to subsidies, the government can also rely on taxation to promote the use of biomass. It is understood that Sweden began to impose an environmental tax on fossil fuels 30 years ago, making it relatively cheap to use biomass to produce heat energy. At present, less than 5% of households in Sweden use thermal energy from coal or oil. In densely populated downtown areas, Sweden uses combustion biomass to generate electricity and injects waste heat into the heating network for centralized heating.

In order to become a rising star of new energy, China’s biomass energy development and utilization will be indispensable in addition to efforts to resolve the geographical limitations of fuel purchases and the establishment of new fuel purchase models. The government will establish a more effective subsidy mechanism and learn from the experience of successful countries. .

(The author is secretary-general of the China Urban Economy and Culture Research Association)