S.I. No. 115/2019 - European Union (Renewable Energy) (Amendment) Regulations 2019

Notice of the making of this Statutory Instrument was published in

“Iris Oifigiúil” of 26th March, 2019.

I, RICHARD BRUTON, Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment, in exercise of the powers conferred on me by section 3 of the European Communities Act 1972 (No. 27 of 1972), and for the purpose of giving further effect to Directive 2009/28/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 23 April 2009¹ as amended by Directive (EU) 2015/1513 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 9 September 2015² , hereby make the following regulations:

1. These Regulations may be cited as the European Union (Renewable Energy) (Amendment) Regulations 2019.

2. The European Union (Renewable Energy) Regulations 2014 ( S.I. No. 483 of 2014 ) are amended -

(a) by the insertion of the following Regulation after Regulation 22:

“22A. The Minister shall cause a report to be made to the European Commission of the amounts of biofuels and bioliquids in energy units corresponding to each category of feedstock group specified in Schedule 6 taken into account by the State for the purpose of complying with the targets set out in paragraphs (1) and (2) of Article 3 and the first subparagraph of Article 3(4) of the Directive.”,

and

(b) by the insertion of the following Schedule after Schedule 5:

“SCHEDULE 6

Part A

Provisional estimated indirect land-use change emissions from biofuel and bioliquid feedstocks (gCO_2eq/MJ) ⁺

* The mean values included here represent a weighted average of the individually modelled feedstock values.

** The range included here reflects 90% of the results using the fifth and ninety-fifth percentile values resulting from the analysis. The fifth percentile suggests a value below which 5% of the observations were found (i.e. 5% of total data used showed results below 8, 4 and 33 gCO2eq/MJ). The ninety-fifth percentile suggests a value below which 95% of the observations were found (i.e. 5% of total data used showed results above 16, 17, and 66 gCO2eq/MJ).

Part B

Biofuels and bioliquids for which the estimated indirect land-use change emissions are considered to be zero

Biofuels and bioliquids produced from the following feedstock categories will be considered to have estimated indirect land-use change emissions of zero:

1. Feedstocks which are not listed in Part A;

2. Feedstocks, the production of which has led to direct land-use change, i.e. a change from one of the following IPCC land cover categories: forest land, grassland, wetlands, settlements or other land to cropland or perennial cropland⁺⁺. In such a case a direct land-use change emission value (el ) should have been calculated in accordance with paragraph 7 of Part C of Schedule 4.

⁺ The mean values reported here represent a weighted average of the individually modelled feedstock values. The magnitude of the values in the Schedule is sensitive to the range of assumptions (such as treatment of co-products, yield developments, carbon stocks and displacement of other commodities) used in the economic models developed for their estimation. Although it is therefore not possible to fully characterise the uncertainty range associated with such estimates, a sensitivity analysis conducted on the results based on a random variation of key parameters, a so-called Monte Carlo analysis, was conducted.

⁺⁺ Perennial crops are defined as multi-annual crops, the stem of which is usually not annually harvested such as short rotation coppice and oil palm.”.

GIVEN under my Official Seal,

20 March 2019

RICHARD BRUTON,

Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment.

1 OJ No. L. 140, 5.6.2009, p. 16

2 OJ No. L. 239, 15.9.2015, p. 1