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Britain’s reliance on burning wood to generate electricity has reached record highs, even as the government moves to curb the controversial use of biomass power.
The latest figures supplied by the owner of the giant Drax biomass plant in North Yorkshire have revealed that power generated from burning biomass wood pellets provided 9% of the UK’s electricity in July, its largest ever monthly share.
Weeks later, biomass provided almost a fifth (17%) of the UK’s electricity for the first time during one morning in September when renewable energy resources were particularly low.
Britain’s record reliance on biomass generation has reached new heights as the government set out its plans to dramatically reduce the controversial energy source under a new subsidy agreement with the FTSE 250 owner of the Drax power plant.
Under the new deal, Drax will continue to earn more than £1m a day from energy bills in exchange for burning wood pellets at its power plant. However, it will only be supported to run just over a quarter of the time, down sharply from almost two-thirds of the time currently.
When the deal was agreed in February, the energy minister, Michael Shanks, said the company’s subsidies had been cut because it “simply did not deliver a good enough deal for billpayers and enabled Drax to make unacceptably large profits”.
Drax has also faced a backlash from green groups amid criticism of the company’s claims that it sources wood only from “well‐managed, sustainable forests” to manufacture the pellets burned at its power plant.
The power plant’s support payments were originally due to end in 2026 but it is now in line to earn £458.6m a year between 2027 and 2031 after the government agreed to extend its subsidies beyond 2026, according to analysts at Ember.
Frankie Mayo, an analyst at the climate thinktank, said: “Britain remains too reliant on polluting fuels, including biomass. While this will wind down as wind and solar grow, we’re not fully there yet: the use of imported fuels for power jumped in July 2025, though fell in subsequent months.
“Halving public subsidies for biomass power at Drax from 2027 will mean reduced reliance on this expensive and polluting fuel, but clean power development can help Britain cut imports faster.”
The government was approached for comment.
The Guardian revealed last month that Drax has continued to burn 250-year-old trees sourced from some of Canada’s oldest forests as recently as this summer, according to a new report from forestry experts at Stand.earth, a Canadian environmental non-profit.
The report’s findings suggest that the Drax power plant was burning “irreplaceable” trees even as its owners lobbied the UK government for the additional green energy subsidies. Drax said the pellets were typically made of “low-grade” wood rejected by commercial sawmills and either sold to the biomass industry as waste wood or burned to prevent wildfires.
Responding to the Stand.earth report, a Drax spokesperson for Drax said: “Our sourcing policy means Drax does not source biomass from designated areas of old growth and only sources woody biomass from well-managed, sustainable forests.”
These designated areas of old growth amount to less than half of the total old-growth forest areas in British Columbia.
Dr Iain Staffell, a professor at Imperial College London, and the lead author of the report, said: “Power demand is rising at its fastest rate for ten years as we swap petrol and diesel cars for electric vehicles and new data centres power more of our lives online. Bridging the gaps in supply when the wind is not blowing or the sun is not shinning is the ultimate test for our electricity system.”
