2012 is a year of great significance in China's development process, an important year that serves as a connecting link in implementing the national "12th Five-Year Plan."
For the biomass pellet molding fuel industry, with a series of favorable policies introduced and successively deepened in implementation, this will also be a year where opportunities outweigh challenges, filled with new hope. Currently, various signs from intensive policy and initiative releases and ongoing planning by various national ministries and commissions indicate that during the "12th Five-Year Plan" period, the development of biomass energy will enter an accelerated phase.
At the beginning of the new year of 2012, the just-released Central Document No. 1 emphasized the need to enhance agricultural technology promotion capabilities, improve ecological construction, expand the scale and scope of agricultural machinery purchase subsidies, further improve subsidy mechanisms and management methods, promote close integration of industry, academia, research, and agricultural science and education, bringing a sense of spring warmth to the new-type stove, boiler, and molding fuel industries.
Throughout the "Eleventh Five-Year Plan" period, China's regulations and policies encouraging and supporting new energy, renewable energy, and biomass energy were intensively introduced. The "Renewable Energy Law" was successively promulgated and implemented, the "Energy Conservation Law" was revised, and supporting implementation rules were issued such as the "Renewable Energy Industry Development Guidance Catalogue," "Interim Measures for Special Fund Management for Renewable Energy Development," "Interim Measures for Straw Energy Utilization Subsidy Fund Management," and "Implementation Plan for Accelerating the Application of Renewable Energy in Rural Building Construction." Industrial plans were introduced such as the "Renewable Energy Medium and Long-term Development Plan" and the "Agricultural Biomass Energy Industry Development Plan."
In the opening year of the "12th Five-Year Plan," multiple departments including the National Development and Reform Commission, Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Agriculture, Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, and National Energy Administration successively followed up, introducing or formulating specific policies and measures to promote the industrialization of biomass energy. The biomass energy industry can be said to be receiving continuous good news and one celebration after another.
——The "Interim Measures for Green Energy Demonstration County Construction Subsidy Fund Management" jointly issued by the Ministry of Finance, National Energy Administration, and Ministry of Agriculture has entered the implementation phase, and the first batch of "Green Counties" has been established. Central finance will directly subsidize 4.75 billion yuan during the "12th Five-Year Plan" period to build 200 Green Energy Demonstration Counties. In the state's overall plan for Green Energy Demonstration Counties, 200 will be reached in 2015, and 500 will be built by 2020. Management follows the principles of "government guidance, market operation, county-level coordination, and performance-linked," with central finance subsidy fund scale for each Green Energy County not exceeding 25 million yuan in principle. If local government matching investment is included, the overall investment in biomass energy will be very substantial.
——It is reported that the soon-to-be-released "Renewable Energy 12th Five-Year Development Plan" specifically includes an appendix "Biomass Energy Special Development Plan." It proposes that by 2015, the total development of non-fossil energy including biomass energy and solar thermal utilization will reach 480 million tons of standard coal. According to this plan, during the "12th Five-Year Plan" period, China's renewable energy development should achieve a qualitative leap and establish a competitive industrial system based on the formation of scale and basic industrial chains.
——The recently issued "Notice on Carrying Out the First Batch of Green Low-Carbon Key Small Town Pilot Demonstration Work" by the Ministry of Finance is also accompanied by a "Special Implementation Plan for Promoting and Applying Renewable Energy and New Energy." Biomass energy will enter the fast lane with the opening of China's Green Low-Carbon Small Town pilots.
——It is reported that the "National Forestry Biomass Energy Development Plan (2011-2020)" has passed review, which will add "energy" to biomass energy development. The plan is formulated around the concept of "scale, industrialization, and marketization," with strong guidance and operability.
——The National Development and Reform Commission has organized the compilation of a Comprehensive Straw Utilization Implementation Plan and issued a Comprehensive Straw Utilization Pilot Work Plan.
——The good news doesn't stop there. It is understood that the "Strategic Emerging Industry Development 12th Five-Year Plan," currently in the comment solicitation stage, also treats biomass energy as an important pole of the new energy sector, giving it key emphasis.
——Last year, a rural energy work conference was convened for the first time in nearly 30 years. Liu Tienan, Director of the National Energy Administration, revealed at the meeting the development target for biomass energy during the "12th Five-Year Plan": by 2015, annual utilization of molding fuel will reach 20 million tons. Biomass energy is expected to lead the development of the new energy sector among strategic emerging industries.
From the various encouraging and supporting new policies listed above, it can be seen that China's policy and regulation system for new energy, renewable energy, and biomass energy has been preliminarily established. These new policies have been successively introduced because a basic consensus has been reached on all fronts: to achieve energy conservation and emission reduction, alternative energy sources to coal must be developed, and biomass energy is the most promising energy source. It is said that relevant departments hope to address future energy demand through new energy increments, with biomass energy being a major focus.
According to relevant data, currently China's rural annual living energy consumption is equivalent to 550 million tons of standard coal, and by the end of the "12th Five-Year Plan," China's total rural energy consumption will decrease to 440 million tons, among which the proportion of high-quality clean energy and new energy will increase significantly, with the former increasing to 40% and the latter potentially reaching 25%, indicating enormous development space.
For the biomass energy industry in 2012, in addition to welcoming more direct subsidy policies, multiple tax and fee reduction substantive support measures will also arrive successively, providing development assistance to the stove (boiler) and biomass molding fuel industries. Although currently the biomass fuel industry's development pace remains slow compared to the rapidly developing stove industry due to technology and cost issues, with the government's later increased technical and cost investment in the biomass fuel industry and the adjustment and deepening of subsidy policies, the industry is expected to achieve industrialization and scale as soon as possible, improve technology, lower costs, and achieve project profitability. Overall, compared to previous years, today's policy support, market environment, user awareness, technological level, investment capacity, and many other aspects are much better, with biomass energy enjoying unprecedented favor. For the stove industry, especially biomass stoves, based on the rapid development during the "Eleventh Five-Year Plan" and driven by multiple policy synergies, it will continue to present a gratifying scene of accelerating growth and continuous expansion. Standardized, scaled, and industrialized development models will become the new trend in the biomass pellet molding fuel industry.
