Impact of the Renewable Energy Sources Act in Germany on electricity produced with solid biofuels - Lessons learned by monitoring the market development

In order to monitor the impact of the EEG and the development of the solid biofuels within the German energy supply system a comprehensive database with about 10 000 datasets has been accumulated over the last decade. This inventory database with various types of information is continuously updated, integrated and validated for data quality. It has emerged that this represents now the most complete and relevant database in Germany. Through the analysis of this database it can be shown, that the enactment of the EEG in 2000 has resulted in a tenfold increase in the number, as well as in the installed capacity of biomass CHP plants. These biomass CHP plants now contribute approximately 9 percent of the total electricity generated from renewable energy sources. The database analysis has also identified that there is a correlation between technology options, stakeholders and biomass sources, as these have changed in line with the changes in framework conditions over the last three EEG periods.