Source: European Parliament
The Commission agrees that renewable fuels of non-biological origin (RFNBOs) will be crucial to the EU’s ambition of achieving climate neutrality.
They will be used for instance in the form of hydrogen in industry and in the form of synthetic fuels in aviation and maritime sectors.
To be compatible with a trajectory towards climate neutrality by 2050, it is necessary to switch in the medium term to sustainable sources of carbon such as carbon captured from the air or biogenic carbon.
To facilitate this transition, the certification rules for RFNBOs allow the application of a mass balance system when the CO2 is sourced from a mixture of fossil and sustainable CO2 rather than insisting on the application of the physical share.
Accordingly, it is possible to consider all CO2 taken from the stream biogenic, provided the amount of biogenic CO2 taken from the stream does not exceed the amount of biogenic CO2 that is included in the mixture, which supports the replacement of fossil fuels during the transition period.
According to Regulation (EU) 2022/996[1], the period over which the mass balance must be achieved in case of CO2 is three months.
The Commission will assess whether the mass balance period can be extended to 12 months, as part of the review of the regulation (EU) 2022/996.
- [1] https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg_impl/2022/996/oj/eng