The demand for biofuels in Spain it is not enough
In order to reverse this trend and to fulfill the objective of 5.75% of biofuels set for 2010 in the renewable energy (PER), APPA Plan considered indispensable and extremely urgent, and thus it has been proposed to the Governmentthe implementation in Spain of a system of obligation of biofuels to increase their consumption, which in 2006 only accounted for 0.53 per cent of the national market of petrol and diesel for transport. APPA biofuels considers it necessary that this obligation will be launched in 2008 with a minimum target of 4.2 per cent for bioethanol and biodiesel.
The production of biofuels in Spain stood in 2006 at 445.577 tonnes, of which 72 percent corresponded to bioethanol (321,000 t) and the rest to bio-diesel (124.577 t). This total figure of production is a 44 percent higher than the number the previous year. At the end of last year they were operating in Spain a total of 16 floors of biofuel production, of which 12 are four of bioethanol and biodiesel.
Sales in Spain of biofuels from domestic plants have grown up in 2006, however, at a rate much lower than the production, increasing only 19 per cent over the previous year, reaching the 241.849 tonsof which about 74 per cent accounted for bioethanol (178.940 t) and the rest to bio-diesel (62.909 t).
The weakness of domestic demand for biofuels has only been able to be compensated with export to other European markets, which Spanish biofuels industry allocated in 2006 a total of 193.256 tons, i.e. 44% of all saleswhich represents ten percentage points more than in the preceding year.
"This business model, increasingly dependent on foreign markets, is not sustainable in time," says Roderic Miralles, President of APPA biofuels, "which, on the one hand, many of our external markets such as, for example, the German, will leave soon to be capable of absorbing as it has been a part of the Spanish production and"", on the other hand, the Commission would substantially increase in the coming months and years."
In energy terms, national sales of bioethanol from Spanish plants accounted for a market share of 1.57 per cent of all gasoline consumed in Spain 2006 Automotive (7.248.856 tonnes equivalent of petroleum (tep)). In relation to the totality of the automotive diesel fuel marketed in the same period (24.615.223 pet), the sales of biodiesel from Spanish plants reached only 0.23 per cent market share.
Market share of biofuels in Spain
APPA defends, and thus it has been proposed to the Ministry of industry, that this obligation will be launched in 2008 at a level of 4.25 per cent applicable separately and in parallel both for biodiesel and bioethanol in relation to diesel and gasolinerespectively. This percentage should go climbing every year up to 5.75% in 2010 and to 10 per cent by 2015.
"The Spanish industry is able to produce bioethanol and biodiesel in sufficient quantities to meet the objectives that we propose as of 2008", said Roderic Miralles. Only the production capacity already installed at the end of 2006 in Spain - 441.000 tons of bioethanol and 244,000 tons of biodiesel - already would cover the 1.57 per cent of the consumption of fossil fuels in energy terms. "If this already installed capacity add new biodiesel and bioethanol plants which will become operational in Spain between 2007 and 2010 can perfectly meet with national production objectives", says Miralles. APPA biofuels considers, moreover, that this obligation of biofuels will only be really effective if its elements, including percentage targets, are well designed and are complemented by a number of other regulatory measures of fiscal, agricultural and administrative nature for the biofuels that APPA has already proposed to the Government asfor example, the extension of the current tax incentive in favour of biofuels for a period of at least ten years since the launch of each installation, as it includes the PER.