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The International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) hosted the IRENA Innovation Week 2020 during 05 – 08, October 2020. For the first time, bioenergy was included as a session during the innovation week where sustainable solutions to grow the bioeconomy were discussed.

World Bioenergy Association (WBA) was invited as a moderator for the panel discussion.

The session had two panel discussions with 13 expert speakers as well as 349 participants. The panels bought together experts from across the globe to showcase best practices and innovative approaches for securing sustainable biomass as feedstock for both industry and transport sector decarbonization. The panel also discussed new and emerging approaches to maximize biomass value streams through co-processing and co-production in biorefineries or in the biomass industry cluster as innovative solutions toward the bio-based economy.

Summary of Key Insights

• Bioenergy has a key role to play in the energy transition and is expected to play an expanded role in the decarbonization of hard-to-abate sectors: technologies are developing rapidly and have a significant potential to scale up by 2050.
• Confidence in the sustainability of biomass is a key requirement for its contribution to energy and environmental objective, its widespread use, its public acceptance and investors’ confidence.
• A holistic approach is key to maximize synergies across the entire biomass value chain (land-use, agriculture, forestry, processing, conversion, waste streams, and end-use) and biomass use for industry and transport sectors should be seen in the context of the entire bioeconomy
• Supportive policy and regulatory frameworks are key to scaling up the deployment of bioenergy

Information about the sessions and recording are available at the IRENA Innovation Week Website: https://innovationweek.irena.org/.

Watch the video recording below.