Australia's Bioenergy Roadmap

Australia’s Bioenergy Roadmap was prepared by Enea and Deloitte for the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA). The Roadmap has been developed following extensive consultation to enhance the growth of Australia’s bioenergy sector and identify bioenergy’s role in Australia’s future energy mix. It is designed to help inform future policy and investment decisions.

It sets out a vision for a sustainable bioenergy industry that delivers lower emissions, regional growth, energy resilience and waste management benefits for Australia.

The Roadmap is part of the Australian Government's technology-based approach to reducing Australia's emissions. It complements efforts to accelerate the development of new and emerging technologies through the Technology Investment Roadmap, and will inform future Low Emissions Technology statements.

Given the extent of bioenergy’s potential, this Bioenergy Roadmap presents a framework from now until 2030 to:

• Showcase where bioenergy has a comparative advantage and where it can complement other low emissions alternative technologies
• Identify current barriers to the development of the bioenergy sector
• Provide findings for industry and government to drive commercial outcomes
• Highlight opportunities to inform and empower the broader community.

Within this framework, opportunities and actions are grouped in the following four themes:

• Enabling market opportunities in hard-to-abate sectors
• Enabling market opportunities where bioenergy can complement other low emissions alternatives
• Developing our resources
• Building supportive ecosystems

International experience shows that the key to growing a bioenergy industry involves strong partnerships across both the public and private sectors. This Roadmap helps identify opportunities for collaboration and outlines the steps that industry can take to build its capabilities and to develop innovative projects and business models.

Bioenergy

Bioenergy is a form of renewable energy generated from the conversion of biomass into heat, electricity, biogas and liquid fuels. Biomass is organic matter derived from forestry, agriculture or waste streams available on a renewable basis. It can also include combustible components of municipal solid waste.

Benefits for Australia

By 2030, Australia’s bioenergy sector could contribute to around $10 billion in extra GDP per annum and 26,200 new jobs, reduce emissions by about 9 per cent, divert an extra 6 per cent of waste from landfill, and enhance fuel security.

Bioenergy accounts for 54 per cent of Australia’s current renewable energy production and 3 per cent of total energy consumption. Modelling for this Bioenergy Roadmap shows that bioenergy has the potential to provide up to 20 per cent of Australia’s total energy consumption by 2050.