While timber companies are increasingly installing biomass boilers to turn their own wood waste into energy, the development of large-scale industrial biomass plants continues to concern industry organisations.
Competing demand for raw material pushes up the price of timber but it is supply issues that really concern the industry.
Currently the large power stations consume around 3 million tonnes of biomass – a figure that is only going to rise as the likes of Drax converts three of its coal-fired stations to biomass and this year RWE will commission a biomass CHP plant in Fife to provide energy to paper manufacturer Tullis Russell.
"Although the majority of material will be imported, the power generators are being very coy as to how much will be sourced domestically," said Alastair Kerr, director-general of the Wood Panel Industries Federation (WPIF).
"DECC forecast that only 10% would be sourced domestically but it depends on how much wood-burning generation is in place as to whether that amounts to a lot or a little.
And it’s future capacity that really has to be considered.
According to Ofgem’s statistics, in 2011-12 domestic supply accounted for 1.6 million tonnes of the 3.1 million tonnes of biomass consumed by UK power generators, and while Mr Kerr expects imports to increase rapidly over the next two years or so as some of the large plants come on stream, the question is how much will domestic timber’s contribution increase.
In addition, existing policies like the climate change levy, the EU emission trading scheme and the Renewable Heat Incentive will encourage the development of heat plants, potentially exerting more pressure on UK wood supply.
"With the main policy instruments in place for power generation DECC will change its focus towards heat. Arguably that will present the wood industry with a bigger problem because, just on DECC’s analysis, 90% of wood used for power generation will be imported but for smaller scale, below 50kW and heat plants, at least 70% will be from domestic sources," said Mr Kerr. "There’s a policy drive which will inevitably put greater demands on domestic supply – more than we’ve seen to date."
But it is not just the next few years that concern the WPIF. The UK government has committed to meeting 15% of the UK’s energy demand from renewable sources by 2020, and now the EU is looking to set targets for 2030.
"Biomass will inevitably play a bigger role in heat and power generation and we need to send alarm bells saying that’s fine, but the UK domestic resource is already under some pressure and there has to be a point where you say enough is enough. Otherwise you’re taking a policy decision where you say you don’t mind displacing other industries. Everything to date from the government is that they say they don’t want to see existing industry damaged," said Mr Kerr.
He wants to see the government do more to encourage the use of the UK’s under-managed and under-utilised woodlands.
"They realise there’s an under-managed and under-utilised woodland resource but are they doing enough to bring that material to market because it would help to mitigate against increasing demand," he said.
