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Key renewable or transition technology?
BIOMASS
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People have used biomass energy - energy from living organisms
- since the dawn of civilisation, when our ancestors first made wood fires for cooking and keeping warm.
Today, Biomass is the second largest source of renewable energy in the country, accounting for around 12% of the UK’s electricity - the most common biomass materials being plants, wood and waste (the so-called biomass feedstocks), with the energy from these organisms transformed into useable energy either directly - by being burned to create heat, or converted into electricity - or indirectly, by being processed into biofuel.
In 2009 the Western Wood Energy biomass plant became the first commercial-scale power station of its kind in Wales. Built in Margam, Port Talbot, at a cost of £33m, the plant is owned by Western Bioenergy and Good Energies (a global investor in renewable energy and energy efficient industries) and burns 160,000t of clean wood every year. Generating 14MW of electricity - sufficient to power 31,000 homes in the region - Western Wood’s ‘biomass competitors’ include five biomass heat projects with a capacity over 1MW, the largest of which remains the 23MW solid biomass boiler at a wood manufacturing plant in Wrexham, commissioned in 2014. The most recent project, commissioned in 2018, is a 1.25MW solid biomass boiler in Rhondda Cynon Taf and these five projects make up 12% of Wales’ biomass thermal capacity, with the rest of the biomass constituency consisting of a multitude of small-scale biomass projects run by households, communities and businesses across Wales.
Taken together, these highly diverse Biomass heat projects represent over two-thirds of all renewable heat capacity in Wales, generating 1,360GWh of heat (enough to meet the equivalent heat demand of approximately 108,000 homes) with a total thermal capacity of 443MW from 3,345 projects. Powys is the local authority area with the highest biomass deployment - a thermal capacity of just under 132MW across 928 projects representing just over a quarter of all biomass heat projects in Wales - with Ceredigion and Carmarthenshire sharing the next highest capacities of around 43MW each.
What future growth can we expect in the Welsh Biomass community? As an energy source it does have sustainability challenges to overcome, not least as carbon savings depend partially on the distance that biomass is transported - and the fact that deployment of biomass boilers in domestic properties (excluding log burners) is limited, with installations in less than 0.1% of Welsh homes.
Green Industries Wales BIOMASS
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There are also challenges for biomass use regarding potential local air quality impacts - with evidence on the impact of biomass to local air quality levels being detailed in the Clean Air Plan for Wales. The UK’s 2019 Clean Air Strategy has a considerable focus on biomass, including proposals to remove coal-to-biomass conversions from future Contract for Difference auctions. Despite this, a small number of new biomass electricity plants are in development, aiming to meet the tighter emissions limits and focussing on revenues from the sale of power rather than receipt of incentive payments, though time may well have run out for the long-mooted 25MW facility at Trecwm in North Pembrokeshire, where plans for development in conjunction with the Manhattan Loft Corporation have remained ‘in the air” for what seems like an eternity. Biomass CHP and Gasification Plants
The UK Government perceives biomass as a transition technology in advance of the electrification of heat, and as a result continues to offer support under the Renewable Heat Incentive, provided sustainability criteria are met. However, tariff cuts have reduced current deployment rates, particularly affecting smaller scale projects, and the Renewable Heat Incentive is due to conclude for new projects in 2021. Despite these challenges, there is a potential long-term role for small-scale biomass projects or biomass-fuelled CHP district heating where sustainable feedstocks or waste biomass can be sourced locally.
Facilities and technologies within this category include electricity from biomass (including waste wood), biomass CHP plants and biomass gasification plants. There are currently 48 operating projects in Wales of these types, with a total electrical capacity of 131MWe and thermal capacity of 119 MWth. The controversial 10MWe waste-wood fired gasification plant opened in 2018 at Barry Docks in the Vale of Glamorgan is perhaps the most high-profile recent addition to this scene - though the Margam Green Energy Plant in Neath Port Talbot, commissioned in 2017, is the largest plant in this category to be installed in recent years (at 41.8MWe); with the CHP plant at Shotton Paper Mill in Flintshire retaining its position as the project with the highest total capacity at 115MW, due to having the highest thermal capacity at 90 MWth combined with an electrical capacity of 25MWe. Given continued innovation and presence, Biomass remains a core if highly disparate source of renewable energy for the foreseeable future.
12%
Today, Biomass is the second largest source of renewable energy in the country, accounting for around 12% of the UK’s electricity.
31,000
The Western Wood Energy biomass plant burns 160,000t of clean wood supplied every year, generating sufficient energy to power 31,000 homes in the region.
48
There are currently 48 operating projects in Wales, within the smallscale biomass projects or biomassfuelled CHP district heating.
