Status Quo of Biomass Standardization in China

Ke Pan

, Bingsheng Xu, Huiting Guo, Bo Wang and Shan Hou

China National Institute of Standardization, Resource and Environmental Branch, No.4, Zhichun Road, Haidian District,

Beijing 100191, China

Keywords:

Standard, Biomass, Biofuel Technology, Carbon Neutrality.

Abstract:

The value of biomass energy has been highlighted once again since the carbon peak and neutrality targets

were raised. However, the development of the industry needs to be guided and guaranteed by advanced

standards. This paper reviews the status quo of standardization in China’s biomass industry, including

standard formulation and standard organizations in the fields of domestic waste incineration power

generation, agricultural and forestry biomass cogeneration, clean biomass heating, biogas (bio natural gas),

biomass analyzed pyrolysis and gasification, biomass liquid fuels, biomass solid fuels, and discussed

problems existing in domestic biomass standardization work.

1 INTRODUCTION

The realization of the carbon peak and neutrality

strategic goals requires a deep and thorough

adjustment of the energy structure. As biomass

energy is not just a zero-carbon option among

today’s renewable energy sources, and its industrial

operation model is capable of connecting rural-

county-urban areas, (Niu, 2020) it is an essential

resource that can be utilized for in-depth and long-

term development to achieve the goals of carbon

peak and neutrality. (Huang, 2021)

At present, according to the different raw

materials, end product forms, processes, etc., the

biomass energy industry is divided into seven

branches: domestic waste incineration power

generation, agricultural and forestry biomass

cogeneration, clean biomass heating, biogas (bio

natural gas), biomass pyrolysis and gasification,

biomass liquid fuels, and biomass solid fuels. The

development of the seven segments is unbalanced at

home and abroad, and the development of the

standards as a support plays an important role in the

status quo and development trend of the industry.

2 STATUS QUO OF CHINA’S

STANDARDIZATION IN THE

FIELD OF BIOMASS AND

EXISTING PROBLEMS

2.1 Overall Situation

So far, China has formulated more than 200 relevant

standards in the field of biomass. On the whole,

national standards are lagging behind industry

standards. Due to the unbalanced development of the

industry, the standardization level of the branchs

varies. The industry standards for biomass solid

fuels and biogas (bio natural gas) are relatively

complete, while those for fuel ethanol and biodiesel,

comprehensive recycling of agricultural and forestry

biomass, biomass heating and power generation, and

biomass gasification are yet to be improved.

In terms of the standardization technical

organizations, China's standardization technical

committees engaged in formulating relevant national

standards mainly include: SAC/TC20/SC6 New

Energy and Renewable Energy Sub-committee of

the National Standardization Technical Committee

on Energy Efficiency; SAC/TC515 National

Standardization Technical Committee on Biogas;

SAC/TC 416 National Standardization Technical

Committee on Forestry Biomass Materials; SAC/TC

42 National Standardization Technical Committee

on Coal; SAC/ TC 280 National Standardization

302

Pan, K., Xu, B., Guo, H., Wang, B. and Hou, S.

Status Quo of Biomass Standardization in China.

DOI: 10.5220/0011735300003607

In Proceedings of the 1st International Conference on Public Management, Digital Economy and Internet Technology (ICPDI 2022), pages 302-306

ISBN: 978-989-758-620-0

 2023 by SCITEPRESS – Science and Technology Publications, Lda. Under CC license (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)

Figure 1: Standards of each branch of the biomass field.

Technical Committee on Petroleum Products and

Lubricants; SAC/TC 349 National Standardization

Technical Committee on Denatured Fuel Ethanol

and Fuel Ethanol; SAC/TC275 JWG1 Biomass

Resource Utilization Working Group of the National

Standardization Technical Committee on

Environmental Protection Industry, etc. The

organizations engaged in formulating industry

standards mainly include: the Standardization

Technical Committee of the Energy Industry on

Non-food Biomass Energy Feedstock, the

Standardization Technical Committee of the Energy

Industry on Bio-liquid Fuel Conversion Process, the

Ministry of Agriculture, National Forestry and

Grassland Administration, Ministry of Housing and

Urban-Rural Development, etc.

Table 1: Relevant standardization technical organizations

in domestic biomass field.

National

standardization

technical

committees

SAC/TC20/SC6 New Energy and

Renewable Energy Sub-committee of

the National Standardization

Technical Committee on Energy

Efficiency

SAC/TC515 National Standardization

Technical Committee on Biogas

SAC/TC416 National Standardization

Technical Committee on Forestry

Biomass Materials

SAC/TC42 National Standardization

Technical Committee on Coal

SAC/TC280 National Standardization

Technical Committee on Petroleum

Products and Lubricants

SAC/TC349 National Standardization

Technical Committee on Denatured

Fuel Ethanol and Fuel Ethanol

SAC/TC275 JWG1 Biomass

Resource Utilization Working Group

of the National Standardization

Technical Committee on

Environmental Protection Industry

Industry

standardization

technical

committees

and

organizations

The Standardization Technical

Committee of the Energy Industry on

Non-food Biomass Energy Feedstock

The Standardization Technical

Committee of the Energy Industry on

Bio-liquid Fuel Conversion Process

The Standardization Technical

Committee of the Energy Industry on

Thermal Power and Power Grid

Engineering

The Standardization Technical

Committee of the Energy Industry on

Energy Industry Biomass Power

Generation Equipment

Ministry of Agriculture, National

Forestry and Grassland

Administration, Ministry of Housing

and Urban-Rural Development,

2.2 Domestic Waste Incineration

Power Generation

At present, there are only 4 national standards and 5

industry standards for domestic waste incineration

power generation in China, and the standards are

lacking as a whole. The existing national standards

include the Standard for Pollution Control on the

Municipal Solid Waste Incineration under the

jurisdiction of the Ministry of Ecology and

Environment, and the Municipal Solid Waste

Incineration Bottom Ash Aggregate and Municipal

Solid Waste Incinerator and Boiler under the

jurisdiction of the Ministry of Housing and Urban-

Rural Development, mainly focus on waste

incineration fly ash and pollution control,

engineering design and other related aspects.

Standards for raw material supply and raw material

quality control that are essential for pretreatment,

technical procedures for core processes and links,

design and test procedures for core equipment -

waste incinerator and other related standards have

been absent for a long time.

Status Quo of Biomass Standardization in China

303

2.3 Agricultural and Forestry Biomass

Cogeneration

There are more than 20 national standards and

industry standards in agricultural and forestry

biomass cogeneration in China. In terms of

equipment, there are standards for smashed straw

machines, balers, crop straw rubbing filament

machines, and straw gasification devices. In terms

of inspection and testing, there are standards such as

Technical Specifications for Monitoring of Animal

Manure. SAC/TC 20/SC 6 has developed the

General Technical Specifications for Collection,

Storage and Transportation of Raw Materials of

Agricultural and Forestry Biomass as the general

standards in the field of comprehensive recycling of

agricultural and forestry biomass, which is expected

to be released within 2021. However, special

standards for pretreatment and quality control of

agricultural and forestry biomass, and relevant

standards for thermoelectric technology, process

flow and project management are yet to be

formulated.

2.4 Clean Biomass Heating

15 industry standards now exist for clean biomass

heating in China, mainly focusing on biomass boiler

heating. There is a significant lack of standards for

decentralized biomass heating and biomass

cogeneration. Due to the particularity of this branch,

there are also questions about whether or to what

extent the existing CHP standards can be applied to

biomass CHP, and how the existing solid biomass

standards can be applied to decentralized heating

with solid fuels in specific modes.

2.5 Biogas (Bio Natural Gas)

There exist more than 90 national standards and

industry standards for biogas (bio natural gas) in

China, involving agriculture, machinery, and light

industry. A great number of standards have been

released. However, in terms of system and structure,

the biogas industry standards for machinery and

light industry fields all fall into the unified biogas

industry system. Repetitions and even contradictions

exist between the upstream and downstream

standards, and general and special standards as they

fall under different standardization technical

committees or different industries. For example, the

mechanical standard Medium/high-power gas

engine technology - Part 3: Biogas engine partly

overlaps with the agricultural industry standard

Biogas-powered generating sets and the national

standard Medium/high-power biogas generating set;

and the light industry standard Polyvinyl chloride

coated fabrics for flexible anaerobic digesters

partially overlap with Technical specifications for

household anaerobic digesters of fiberglass

reinforced plastics. In general, the current rural

biogas standards mainly focus on the promotion and

application of household biogas, especially specific

products and technical conditions standards, while

the basic and general standards for methods and

safety are absent, and the problems of mismatched

and uneven standards are obvious.

2.6 Biomass Pyrolysis and Gasification

In this branch there are 9 national standards and

industry standards. The industry standards are

mainly under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of

Agriculture. The New Energy and Renewable

Energy Sub-committee of the National

Standardization Technical Committee on Energy

Efficiency (SAC/TC20/SC6) formulated the only

two existing national standards. The existing

standards cover the control of tar content in the

pyrolysis and gasification process, engineering

design, construction of centralized gas supply

stations, and sewage treatment. No relevant

standards are available for gasification equipment,

process flow, and quality control of combustible gas

produced by pyrolysis and gasification, and product

inspection and testing.

2.7 Biomass Liquid Fuels

At present, there are 28 national standards and

industry standards for biomass liquid fuels in China,

mainly focusing on fuel ethanol and biodiesel which

are used as the mainstream biomass liquid fuels. The

terminology, raw material requirements, production

technical regulations, production equipment,

pollution control, composition determination, etc.

are involved. One of these standards is the

mandatory national standard Biodiesel fuel blends

(B5) (GB 25199-2015) under the jurisdiction of the

National Energy Administration. Compared with

some other technical branches in the biomass field,

China's biomass liquid fuel standards have made

rapid progress in promoting the transformation of

the technical content and achievements of some

large enterprises and projects.

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2.8 Biomass Solid Fuels

39 national standards as well as 36 industry

standards are under the jurisdiction of coal, energy,

agriculture, forestry and other related departments.

In terms of content, the composition determination

of biomass solid fuels accounts for a large share, in

addition to product grading and classification,

determination of physical properties, terminology,

and operation procedures. Most of the composition

determination standards are transplanted coal

chemical industry standards or adopted foreign

standards. There is a large gap between the large-

scale biomass solid solid fuel industry in foreign

countries and the small-scale family workshop

industry in China. The international standards

mainly focus on traditional physical and chemical

experimental methods, while the relevant standard

system in China is transplanted from that of the

European Committee for Standardization (CEN),

which is outdated in terms of content and

technology. In practice, inspection and testing rely

on large equipment, and the upstream resources are

organized through "decentralized" small-scale

family workshops. Therefore, there is a problem that

China's standards are not quite applicable for

domestic production methods.

2.9 Existing Problems

2.9.1 Lack of Top-Level Design for

Standard Formulation

At present, many standardization technical

committees are involved in relevant standards. From

different perspectives of the industry chain, the

standards proposed by different committees have

shown the problems of overlapping, repetition and

incomplete coverage. Due to the lack of top-level

design for the development of standards at different

levels and the lack of a standardization roadmap, the

standards are not yet coordinated and unified,

resulting in the absence of key standards and

important indicators. The operation of the standard

system and the application of standard integration

yield poor results, and no synergy has been formed

yet in supporting the implementation of relevant

policies.

2.9.2 Absence of Key Standards and Uneven

Standard Formulation

The standards in the field of domestic waste

incineration power generation mainly focus on

waste incineration fly ash and pollution control,

engineering design, etc. Standards for raw material

supply and raw material quality control, technical

procedures and standards for core processes and

links and core equipment have been absent for a

long time. There is a lack of standards for

pretreatment and quality control of agricultural and

forestry biomass, thermoelectric technology, process

flow, and project management. In the fields of

biogas (bio natural gas), the basic and general

standards for methods and safety are absent. In the

field of biomass pyrolysis and gasification, there are

no relevant standards for gasification equipment,

process flow, and quality control of combustible gas

produced by pyrolysis and gasification, and product

inspection and testing. Without these key standards,

the standardization of China's biomass industry has

fallen short of truly meeting the needs of industrial

development and enterprise production.

2.9.3 Failure to Deeply Penetrate into

Production Relations and Play the

Role of a Filter

For some special problems in the current production

relations of the biomass industry, such as the

bargaining of straw price (Zhang, 2020), and the

sole reliance of some producers on subsidies, the

existing standards cannot provide solutions or guide

the industry to carry out self-regulation, and fail to

play the role of a filter to regulate the industry.

3 CONCLUSION

At present, the development level of biofuel

technology in China urgently needs to be

accelerated, especially considering the reality that

the limitations in production efficiency and

innovation of biomass energy processing seriously

confine the promotion and application of biofuels

(Tian, 2021; Li, 2021). Intensifying the efforts in the

formulation and revision of standards in the field of

biofuels is conducive to refining and standardizing

the advanced technological achievements in the

industry, promoting the rapid transformation of

technological achievements into productivity,

enhancing the practicality and promotional value of

technological achievements in the industry,

improving the market adaptability of scientific

research results, and accelerating the development

of biofuels in China. Standard setters need to plan

and formulate standards from the perspective of

overall industrial development and the realization of

Status Quo of Biomass Standardization in China

305

carbon peak and neutrality goals, so as to enhance

the value and utility of standards.

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