Regulatory framework

Programmes all over the world offer investment subsidies and tax breaks to encourage the switch to environmentally friendly biofuels. Interest in biomass heating systems is also growing due to sharp increases in oil, gas and electricity prices. Setting a minimum proportion of the energy supply to be generated using renewable energies in the building sector can also be an effective regulatory means of promoting renewable energy use.

In Germany, such a minimum proportion was established at the federal level by the Renewable Energy Heat Act (EEWärmeG), which came into force on the 1st of January 2009. Furthermore, biomass systems in existing buildings and biomass systems providing process heat are financially promoted in Germany through the so-called ‘Marktanreizprogramm’ (market incentive programme or MAP). The following systems are eligible for funding: pellet stoves with water pocket, pellet boilers (also combined boilers), and low-emission wood chip gasification boilers. The fixed, long-term, guaranteed feed-in tariffs for power produced using renewable energies that were legally established in the EEG have provided for enormous growth in the German market for decentralised electricity generation from solid biomass.