AbstractThe National Renewable Energy Action Plans (NREAPs), as submitted to the European Commission by the 27 European Union member states (EU27), show ambitious development paths for the deployment of biomass in the heat, electricity, and transport sectors up to 2020. This study analyzes the distribution of different biomass feedstocks over these sectors for various biomass scenarios, examining the fixed development paths described in the NREAPs, while also presenting a possible change in biomass demand for these scenarios. The analysis also reaches beyond the scope of the NREAPs up to 2030. The allocation of biomass for heating (H), electricity (E) and transport (T) applications in the EU27 has been modeled using the RESolve toolkit. RESolve can work both in a static mode and in a dynamic mode. In the static mode the demand for biomass based energy per sector (H, E, and T) is constrained to a fixed amount, whereas in the dynamic mode this constraint is relaxed: the interaction with other renewable (and partially also fossil) energy sources may result in a change in bioenergy demand. From the analysis it can be concluded that in most EU countries the NREAP figures for bioenergy deployment will not be reached under the present regional and national policy/support schemes and market developments. When applying stricter sustainability criteria, the bioenergy developments in the EU27 decrease even further. These effects are strongest for the use of biofuels in transport and biogas for electricity. © 2013 Society of Chemical Industry and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd