RED III quotas and caps: what changes for waste oils and fats

The renewable energy share transport must reach, the directive's headline number, implemented nationally with local instruments. The target is the ceiling's ceiling.

Member states implement within the framework, the caps defining what counts where, trading happening between operators not governments. The map is fixed, the cargo chooses its country.

The counted-value factor certain feedstocks' energy carries, waste-based double counting being the famous one, the arithmetic of encouragement. Multipliers are policy in mathematics.

The directive reaches beyond transport into heating and cooling, the feedstock family's markets multiplying again. One regulation, many chimneys.

Implementation now, revision later, the policy cycle already drafting the next chapter, the market reading drafts as weather forecasts. RED IV is a rumour with a committee.

A minimum share of energy from Part A feedstocks and renewable fuels of non-biological origin, the quota that keeps demand pointed at the streams nobody eats. Advanced is the EU's word for no-food, and it carries a price.

Renewable fuels of non-biological origin, e-fuels built from renewable power, hydrogen and captured carbon, with their own sub-mandates in transport and aviation. The eSAF obligation is their flagship, and it is synthetic chemistry with a subsidy-shaped hole where cost should be.

Capped material counts toward targets only up to a limit, so beyond it buyers pay energy value without compliance value, a cliff that pricing strategies must see coming. The certificate is worth what the cap allows, not what the molecule deserves.

Yes, the directive extends into maritime transport energy while FuelEU Maritime runs its own intensity regime, two instruments pulling the same ships in complementary directions. Shipping now files two kinds of homework.

The European Union's third renewable energy directive: it sets the renewable energy targets for 2030 and rewrites the rules for transport fuels, including what counts, how much waste-based material may be double counted, and the sub mandates for advanced fuels and aviation. Almost every price on this site traces back to a line in it.

Limits on how much biofuel from Annex IX Part B feedstocks, the used cooking oils and fats of this world, may count toward the transport target. The caps do not ban these feedstocks, they ceiling their counting value, which reshaped who competes for every litre.

European directives reach you through national law: each member state transposes RED III into its own implementing rules, and the dates shift with that process. We track the national state of play because a cargo's value depends on the destination's implementation, not on Brussels alone.

No. UCO remains eligible and counts toward renewable transport targets; it is capped, not banned. The 1.7% cap limits how much of a member state's target Part B feedstocks can cover, which affects the premium buyers can pay for marginal volume, not the legality of the trade.

A mechanism from the directive that lets certain waste-based fuels count twice toward the targets. Member states apply it differently, so the same certified cargo can be worth more blended in one country than in its neighbour.

The transposition deadline was 21 May 2025, and the Commission noted member states were required to have the transport provisions in national law by then; in practice implementation is uneven and the national systems are still moving. For a seller, that means the map of which buyer values what changes quarter by quarter.

The short list for our markets: used cooking oil, category 1 and 2 animal fats, and a few others including tall oil pitches and corn husks. The full lists and the practical differences are on our Annex IX feedstock page.