My Lords, I am extremely grateful to my noble friends Lord Jenkin and Lord Roper for tabling this amendment. It would give the Secretary of State further powers to require operators of electricity generating stations that use wood as a form of renewable energy to provide fuel strategies to the Secretary of State for review and approval, covering, for example, the quantity and country of origin of wood to be used.
I am grateful to noble Lords who have raised serious concerns. I appreciate the intention behind my noble friends’ amendment, which is to increase the control the Government have over the amount and kind of woody biomass which is used for electricity generation, and thus to minimise the potential impacts on non-energy sectors which use wood such as the wood processing and wood panel sectors. Indeed, it is a stated aim of the Government’s bioenergy strategy that support for bioenergy, including support for power generation from woody biomass, should consider the consequences of policy interventions on the wider energy system and economy, including non-energy industries. It is the Government’s view that where this and the other aims listed in the bioenergy strategy are met, bioenergy can make a significant contribution to meeting our renewable energy, energy security and emissions reduction needs at low cost. Bioenergy also has the benefit of being dispatchable, so can operate when required.
However, we are aware of concerns raised by several UK industries regarding the impact of biomass electricity on UK wood prices and have taken a number of measures to address this. Last year we took the decision to ask all large-scale electricity generators using woody biomass to disclose to us, on a voluntary basis, the amount of UK wood that they estimate they will procure and use over the next five years. We require this information to be signed off by the company’s board. We are pleased to say that all the operators responded to our request and provided this information, which the department has aggregated and will publish shortly. We will write to the electricity companies again this year with the intention to make the fuel disclosure a yearly practice.
Generating stations operating under the renewables obligation are also required to provide annual sustainability reports on biomass use. This includes the information held by the operator on the tonnages and types of biomass used—for example, whether that be woodchip, sawdust or energy crops—and whether the fuel came from a source which complied with an environmental standard. Ofgem publishes this data each year, and DECC will publish aggregated data.