Germany Tightens Biomass Rules Under RED III, Ending 'Protection of Trust' for Biofuel Certificates

On 28 October, Germany's federal cabinet approved amendments to two of the country's sustainability ordinances: the Biofuel Sustainability Ordinance, known as Biokraft-NachV, and the Biomass Electricity Sustainability Ordinance, BioSt-NachV. Together they write the sustainability requirements of the EU's revised Renewable Energy Directive, RED III, into German law. The changes give authorities new powers against certificate fraud in the biofuels market and raise the greenhouse gas savings that bioenergy power plants must meet.

The environment ministry, BMUKN, led the work. Its stated aim is to make sure that using biomass for energy does not harm the environment, biodiversity in particular. The ordinances do not need approval from the Bundesrat, Germany's upper house, and take effect the day after they are published in the Federal Law Gazette.

The biofuel changes answer a scandal that surfaced in 2023, when advanced biofuels from China counted toward Germany's GHG quota were suspected of being mislabelled. The central remedy is abolishing the "protection of trust" rule. Under it, a sustainability certificate could not be withdrawn retroactively, even if fraud was found after issuance. Now mis-declared biofuels will be excluded from quota counting, and sustainability certificates must be transferred or submitted to the German biofuel quota authority within three years.

Certification bodies face tighter requirements too. The Federal Office for Agriculture and Food, BLE, gains access to detailed supply chain information, plus its own rights to inspect and control. Once the EU's Union Database, which tracks liquid and gaseous fuels along the supply chain, is operational, using it becomes mandatory.

The German Biofuels Industry Association, VDB, welcomed the decision. Managing director Elmar Baumann said three years of fraud involving supposedly advanced biofuels had held back substantial investment in charging infrastructure, green hydrogen, e-fuels and new biofuels.

For electricity, the required GHG savings rise from 70% to 80% for installations commissioned after 20 November 2023. Existing plants that received EEG support before that date stay under the earlier RED II GHG rules, and in most cases will not have to carry out GHG calculations until the end of 2030. As Bioenergy Insight reported earlier, BioSt-NachV also extends sustainability certification to solid biomass power plants of 7.5MW and above, down from 20MW, with a transitional period for certification. The amendments also clarify requirements for wood-based residues, with the aim of strengthening protection for old-growth forests and sensitive areas such as heathland and peatland.

When the draft went to the European Commission in July, the Federal Bioenergy Association, BBE, welcomed the removal of forestry definitions that would have gone beyond RED III. It criticised the absence of additional default values and simplified GHG calculation methods, and objected to Germany's decision not to use RED III's option of a simplified verification system for plants between 7.5 and 20MW.

The approval comes late. Germany's deadline for transposing RED III's bioenergy sustainability provisions passed in May 2025, and industry groups had warned that the delay left operators of older plants unsure which requirements applied to them. It also follows the government's confirmation that it has no current plans for a National Biomass Strategy, NABIS, which was meant to prioritise limited biomass across power, heat, transport and materials. In an answer to a Left Party parliamentary question published on 14 October, the government said biomass remains important to its climate and energy security goals and expects demand for biogenic fuels in heating to keep rising. It acknowledged, however, that it has no complete overview of how much biomass Germany produces or how much goes to energy. Publication in the Federal Law Gazette is the next step.