Despite the benefits of biofuels in the fields of agriculture, security of energy supply and the environment, barriers to the use of biofuels are still substantial in India and South-East Asia. There is no financing mechanism in place, the awareness in the transportation sector of this clean technology is low, and the best technologies are not always available to Indian companies. On the biomass supply side, the Indian agricultural sector has a lengthy experience with biomass production. The increasing demand for biofuels would have positive economic implications for this sector. However, there are policy barriers to be overcome as well.
The ProBios project (Promotion of Biofuels for Sustainable Development in South and South East Asia) aims at promoting biofuels in the view of sustainable development in the Southern and South eastern Asian countries. The first stage of this project concerns a study providing a thorough review of the complicated and sector-overarching issue of biofuels in India and surrounding countries. This report constitutes a contribution to this study.
In order to get an insight in policy issues and barriers for biofuels, it is useful to draw lessons from past experiences. Several European countries have already introduced biofuels into their market before the EU Directive was issued. Some have done so successfully, while others have struggled to create a stable market. This report describes past experiences with their policy con-text for a selection of EU countries, with the purpose of identifying conclusions from the European experience that may be valuable for Indian and South East Asian policy makers and other biofuels stakeholders.

By: E. van Thuijl, E.P. Deurwaarder (ECN)

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