The UK should stop burning wood to generate power because it is not needed to meet the government’s target of decarbonising the electricity sector by 2030, according to analysis.
Ed Miliband, the energy security and net zero secretary, is expected to make a decision soon on whether to allow billions of pounds in new public subsidies for biomass burning, despite fierce opposition from green groups.
Campaigners have amassed years of evidence of how much destruction burning wood causes to forests and wildlife around the world, and argue that it is not “carbon neutral” because regrowing trees takes decades to make up for the carbon emitted when they are burned.
But ministers were thought to be reluctant to let go of the capacity for baseload power generation that biomass represents. Biomass makes up roughly 4% of the UK’s total electricity generation, and about 8% of “green” power generation, most of it coming from the Drax power station.
Losing that would leave a big gap in the government’s plans to decarbonise the power sector by 2030.
However, research seen by the Guardian shows that the shortfall can be made up and that bill-payers would benefit. The thinktank E3G and the analyst company Baringa Partners found that expanding offshore wind, encouraging consumers to use electricity at quiet times through smart metering and regulating gas-fired power plants to stop them profiteering would produce savings to consumers and enable the target to be met.
Ed Matthew, the UK programme director at E3G, said: “The government can reach its 2030 clean power mission without Drax. Biomass power creates a high level of global heating emissions and is not clean. The best back-up power for the long term will be green hydrogen, and action is needed now to commercialise this technology as fast as possible.”
The report found that, with changes to the UK’s renewable energy regime and policies, including shifting green levies on bills into general taxation, households could save £200 a year on their electricity bills.
Drax, formerly the UK’s biggest coal-fired power station, which was converted to burn wood, is the main source of the UK’s biomass electricity generation. The company has contracts to receive subsidies for burning wood until 2027, and is hoping for a renewal.
By then, Drax will have received £11bn in public subsidies, according to Greenpeace – roughly £2m a day. The decision on whether to continue the subsidies lies with Miliband.
Many Labour MPs are privately unhappy about the prospect of diverting more payments to such a controversial source of power. Paul McNamee, the director of the Labour Climate and Environment Forum, said: “Highlighting green hydrogen as the most cost-effective option for back-up power proves Labour’s recent investment announcements are exactly what our energy market needs. It should also provide pause for thought on any upcoming decision for subsidising Drax, the biggest single emitter of carbon dioxide in the UK.”
Drax disputed the report’s findings. A spokesperson for the company accused the report’s authors of “cherrypicking the science”, pointing to separate research from Baringa that showed Drax’s plans could benefit the UK’s economy.
“[This] flawed report does not consider the benefits of keeping Drax power station’s low-carbon generation on the grid, and does not provide a cost-benefit analysis of the technologies that need to be deployed the deliver the clean power goal,” the spokesperson said. “Over the last month, biomass has at times provided more power for the country than solar and wind combined, and our site is playing a critical role in UK energy security, keeping the lights on for 4m homes no matter the weather.”
E3G also found that some existing gas-fired power stations would still be needed in 2030, but that these could be coupled with a relatively small amount of carbon capture and storage technology. Excess renewable energy, generated at times of high wind and solar output, could be used to generate hydrogen which could be stored in salt caverns. This would greatly reduce the need for backup generation.
Zonal pricing for electricity, which could be used to give local communities cheaper power if they host infrastructure such as windfarms or pylons, and more public investment in green energy would also be needed, the authors said.
Matthew said: “The government must re-engineer our power policies to make them fit for a renewables-based future.”
A spokesperson for the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero said: “Subsidies for biomass generators will end in 2027 and we are reviewing evidence on the case for potential support beyond this. We expect full compliance with all regulatory obligations on biomass – consumers rightly expect the highest standard of accountability from generators.”
