Britain’s second-biggest energy company plans to buy a Scottish forest to help to feed its growing network of biomass-fired power stations, The Times has learnt (see Commentary).
Scottish & Southern Energy (SSE), which supplies electricity and gas to nine million British homes, hopes to use the forest to supply fuel for two of its power stations — Fiddlers Ferry, in Cheshire, and Ferrybridge, West Yorkshire — where it has installed equipment allowing it to burn timber as well as coal.
The move reflects a scramble by British utilities to secure timber supplies to burn in biomass electricity plants, which are rewarded by lucrative subsidies.
An SSE spokesman said that the company was studying opportunities to invest directly in Scottish forestry, but declined to offer further details.
As well as Fiddlers Ferry and Ferrybridge, SSE is planning to build four biomass plants in a joint venture with Forth Ports in Dundee, Leith, Rosyth and Grangemouth. Together, the Scottish facilities will burn an estimated four million tonnes of wood per year — equivalent to 40 per cent of the UK’s domestic annual wood harvest of ten million tonnes. They will generate about 400 megawatts of electricity, less than 1 per cent of total UK power-generating capacity.
SSE also owns Slough Heat and Power, an 80 megawatt biomass-fired power station in Berkshire.
Cameron Maxwell, head of business development for Forestry Commission Scotland, said that there was growing interest in forestry ownership from British energy companies. “If you are going to build one of these plants, you really have to be able to source the supply properly. It’s a very important commercial consideration.”
Scotland produces about seven million tonnes of wood a year, about 70 per cent of the UK’s annual harvest.
Up to 11 new biomass plants are planned in the UK, but, with only 12 per cent of Britain covered by forest, most of the wood for the new plants will need to be shipped in from the United States, Brazil, Scandinavia and Canada. About 70 per cent of Scandinavia is forested.
The Forestry Commission has predicted a 150 per cent surge in British wood imports from 20 million tonnes today to 50 million tonnes by 2015.
Fenning Welstead, an agent at John Clegg, a chartered foresters and surveyors firm in Edinburgh, said that the interest from energy companies in timber was “skewing the market”.
Drax, operator of Britain’s biggest coal-fired station, has raised the idea of a joint venture with Forestry Commission Scotland to supply timber for three new biomass plants that it plans to build in Yorkshire. Details of the proposal, which was made in an official response to a consultation exercise on forestry provisions to Scottish climate change legislation, were contained in a document seen by The Times.
Scottish & Southern Energy (SSE), which supplies electricity and gas to nine million British homes, hopes to use the forest to supply fuel for two of its power stations — Fiddlers Ferry, in Cheshire, and Ferrybridge, West Yorkshire — where it has installed equipment allowing it to burn timber as well as coal.
The move reflects a scramble by British utilities to secure timber supplies to burn in biomass electricity plants, which are rewarded by lucrative subsidies.
An SSE spokesman said that the company was studying opportunities to invest directly in Scottish forestry, but declined to offer further details.
As well as Fiddlers Ferry and Ferrybridge, SSE is planning to build four biomass plants in a joint venture with Forth Ports in Dundee, Leith, Rosyth and Grangemouth. Together, the Scottish facilities will burn an estimated four million tonnes of wood per year — equivalent to 40 per cent of the UK’s domestic annual wood harvest of ten million tonnes. They will generate about 400 megawatts of electricity, less than 1 per cent of total UK power-generating capacity.
SSE also owns Slough Heat and Power, an 80 megawatt biomass-fired power station in Berkshire.
Cameron Maxwell, head of business development for Forestry Commission Scotland, said that there was growing interest in forestry ownership from British energy companies. “If you are going to build one of these plants, you really have to be able to source the supply properly. It’s a very important commercial consideration.”
Scotland produces about seven million tonnes of wood a year, about 70 per cent of the UK’s annual harvest.
Up to 11 new biomass plants are planned in the UK, but, with only 12 per cent of Britain covered by forest, most of the wood for the new plants will need to be shipped in from the United States, Brazil, Scandinavia and Canada. About 70 per cent of Scandinavia is forested.
The Forestry Commission has predicted a 150 per cent surge in British wood imports from 20 million tonnes today to 50 million tonnes by 2015.
Fenning Welstead, an agent at John Clegg, a chartered foresters and surveyors firm in Edinburgh, said that the interest from energy companies in timber was “skewing the market”.
Drax, operator of Britain’s biggest coal-fired station, has raised the idea of a joint venture with Forestry Commission Scotland to supply timber for three new biomass plants that it plans to build in Yorkshire. Details of the proposal, which was made in an official response to a consultation exercise on forestry provisions to Scottish climate change legislation, were contained in a document seen by The Times.
Source: The Times
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