Renewable energy providers have been warned they must show their fuel is from sustainable sources – or face losing government support.
Biomass energy generators will face new rules on ensuring sustainability of wood-based fuel for production from April 2015.
The rules will cover forest management and protection, with any organisation generating more than 1MW of energy – around 98% of the biomass producers in the UK – from solid biomass or biogas feedstock required to provide independent audits of their sustainability.
“The coalition is committed to delivering clean, affordable and secure energy for consumers – this includes an important role for biomass power as part of the UK’s energy mix,” said energy minister Greg Barker.
“The new criteria will provide the necessary investor certainty and, crucially, ensure that the biomass is delivered in a transparent and sustainable way.”
Biomass power plants will also have to prove they have reduced greenhouse gas emissions by 72% of the average fossil fuel-fired plants by 2020 and 75% by 2025.
The new rules were welcomed by industry body Renewable Energy Association, who said it would bring a degree of certainty to the biomass supply chain.
“These sustainability criteria ensure that the UK can reap the benefits of biomass, safe in the knowledge that it is making a real dent in our carbon emissions and that ecologically sensitive land is being protected,” said chief executive Nina Skorupska.
“Biomass is a great way to bridge the looming capacity gap because it has all the same benefits as fossil fuels – such as reliability and flexibility of supply – but without the carbon impacts.
“It is absolutely right that biomass should only be supported if it can be proven to be good for the environment. These criteria enable industry to do exactly that. They are challenging, but not unattainable. Generators are actually incentivised to over-achieve on greenhouse gas savings in order to minimise the risk of non-compliance.”
However Dr Doug Parr, chief scientist with Greenpeace who have been critics of biomass generation in the past, was unhappy with the new rules for failing to mention carbon debt or land change.
“The loopholes in these sustainability standards are big enough to drive a logging truck through,” he said.
“Having learnt nothing from the biofuels debacle, the Government has ignored the latest scientific research and produced standards that will take a potentially sustainable industry and transform it into one more way to greenwash environmental destruction.”
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