Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2023/1640 of 5 June 2023 on the methodology to determine the share of biofuel and biogas for transport, produced from biomass being processed with fossil fuels in a common process
Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2023/1640of 5 June 2023on the methodology to determine the share of biofuel and biogas for transport, produced from biomass being processed with fossil fuels in a common processTHE EUROPEAN COMMISSION,Having regard to the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union,Having regard to Directive (EU) 2018/2001 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11 December 2018 on the promotion of the use of energy from renewable sourcesOJ L 328, 21.12.2018, p. 82., and in particular Article 28(5) thereof,Whereas:(1)Co-processing typically refers to an oil refinery unit processing biomass feedstock together with fossil feedstock and transforming them into final fuels. However, this methodology may be also applied in other cases of installations treating bioliquids and fossil oil or in installation co-processing wastes of bio and non-bio origin. The biomass feedstock may for instance be lipid-based material, such as vegetable oil, crude tall oil or pyrolysis oil, and the fossil feedstock typically originates from crude oil. The final fuels produced from such a feedstock mix are usually diesel fuel, jet fuel, heating oil, marine fuel, gasoline, gasoline components and sometimes propane gas, a constituent of Liquefied Petroleum Gas, while minor fractions of other products can also be present. Crucially, such co-processed fuels contain a share of biofuels and biogas. The case of a production unit that uses biomethane as a feedstock withdrawn from the interconnected infrastructure, which is certified and traced through the mass-balancing system of the interconnected gas infrastructure, is not considered as a type of co-processing in the meaning of this delegated regulation.(2)For the purposes of this delegated regulation, biogas refers to the gas originating from the biomass feedstock, and which is produced from co-processing of that biomass feedstock together with fossil feedstock to convert them into final liquid and gaseous fuels.(3)In order to allow for the renewable share of fuels produced in a common process from biomass and fossil feedstock to be counted towards the targets established under Directive (EU) 2018/2001 and effectively contribute towards reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the Union, its Article 28(5) requires the Commission to adopt a delegated act specifying the methodology by which to determine the share of biofuel, and biogas for transport, resulting from biomass being processed with fossil fuels in a common process.(4)In order to achieve a balance between verification costs and accuracy of tests, the delegated act allows economic operators either to use a common harmonised testing method, based on radiocarbon (14C) testing, or to use their own testing methods, which may be company-specific or process-specific. However, to ensure that a common verification method is applied on the market, economic operators using a method other than the radiocarbon (14C) testing as the main testing method should regularly use radiocarbon (14C) testing of the outputs to verify the correctness of the main testing method used. Furthermore, in order to allow economic operators to get accustomed to the application of the radiocarbon (14C) testing in combination with another testing method as main method, some flexibility about the acceptable percentage of deviation between the results of both main and second verification tests is allowed within the first year of application of this methodology.HAS ADOPTED THIS REGULATION: