Participation in national and international standardisation projects

A technical standard represents the state of technology as determined in a consensus-based process organized by a standards body. Standards lay down general and/or detailed specifications for products, procedures and services alike. In Germany the acknowledged national standards body is the DIN, the German Institute for Standardization, which also represents German interests in European and international standards organizations, e.g. in European Committee for Standardization (CEN) and in International Organization for Standardization (ISO).
The term "standard" is defined in the standard DIN EN 45020: "Document, established by consensus and approved by a recognized body, that provides, for common and repeated use, rules, guidelines or characteristics for activities or their results, aimed at the achievement of the optimum degree of order in a given context".
In the field of renewable resources interesting standards are for example the standards for solid biofuels. In the last years 40 standards about terminology, fuel specification and classes, quality assurance, sampling, analysis physical, mechanical and chemical properties were published. The two most important standard being developed deal with classification and specification (EN 14961) and quality assurance for solid biofuels (EN 15234). Both these standards will be published as multipart
standards. The Part 1 – General requirements of EN 14961 includes all solid biofuels and is targeted for all user groups, but will be probably used mainly in industry.
A further interesting area of current standardization work is the sustainability of biomass. The DIN-Committee 172 “Sustainability Criteria for Biomass” is the responsible committee for standardisation in the field of sustainable bioenergy at national, European and international level in Germany.
The Technical Committee CEN/TC 383 “Sustainability Criteria for biomass” works on standards to support the implementation of the Renewable Energy Directive 2009/28/EC. The aim is to define criteria which support the certification of sustainable produced biomass for energetic use. Only certified sustainable biomass can be taken into account when calculating the achievement of the targets for the share of renewable energy laid down in the directive.

The International Organisation for Standardization (ISO) has been working on the development of a global standard for sustainability criteria for bioenergy since 2010. The German Institute for Standardization (DIN) and the Brazilian Association of Technical Standards (ABNT) provided the secretariat and leadership of the committee ISO/PC 248 “Sustainability Criteria for bioenergy” under a twinned arrangement.

• ISO
• CEN

FNR contact person: Birger Kerckow