Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:

To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, what standards of forest sustainability are required of Drax for the supply of electricity to (a) private data centres and (b) the National Grid.

Drax must ensure its power generation complies with the terms of its subsidy agreements, currently provided for by the Renewables Obligation (RO) and Contract for Difference (CfD) schemes. These agreements include wide-ranging environmental protections addressing biodiversity, greenhouse gas emissions, legal and sustainable harvesting, and maintaining forest productivity, and require at least 70% of woody biomass to be sustainably sourced.

From 2027 these arrangements will be replaced by the new Low-Carbon Dispatchable CfD. This will require all of Drax’s generation to comply with strengthened sustainability standards, including an obligation to ensure that 100% of biomass used is sustainably sourced. We have also tightened the standard of supply chain greenhouse gas emissions and excluded primary feedstocks sourced from primary and old growth forests from receiving support payments.