Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what assessment his Department has made of the potential merits of redirecting renewable energy subsidies away from biomass to wind and solar power.

Sustainable, low carbon bioenergy has helped us move to a low-carbon energy mix, increase our energy security, and keep costs down for consumers. Bioenergy remains an important part of a diverse energy mix, needed to achieve our Net Zero ambitions. We have introduced mandatory sustainability criteria for biomass for heat and power generation. This is to ensure biomass reduces carbon emissions and is sourced sustainably. Generators only receive subsidies for the electricity output which complies with our sustainability criteria.

In November 2020, we announced that we would make the changes required to exclude coal-to-biomass conversions from future Contract for Difference (CfD) allocation rounds. However, we have no plans to remove support for biomass generating stations that are already supported under the Renewables Obligation (RO) and the CfD. Such generators undertook their investments in establishing their stations under these schemes and have a statutory right to their existing support, as set out in the schemes’ implementing legislation. All support for coal-to-biomass conversions ends in 2027.

In March 2020 we announced that onshore wind and solar projects will be able to bid in the Contracts for Difference allocation round 4. The round will open in late 2021 and aim to deliver up to double the renewable capacity of last year’s successful round, potentially providing enough clean energy for up to 10 million homes.

On 17 November, my Rt. Hon. Friend the Prime Minister set out his ambitious ten-point plan for a green industrial revolution – an innovative and ambitious programme of job creation and investment. This includes deploying enough offshore wind to generate more power than every home uses today, quadrupling our generation capacity to 40GW by 2030.