Green campaigners slam £4billion Drax handout
Taxpayers may must fork out £4billion to energy station proprietor Drax below new clear power funding plans despite the fact that campaigners dispute its inexperienced credentials.
The FTSE 250 agency, which beforehand ran the UK’s largest coal-fired energy plant, now produces electrical energy by burning wooden pellets, generally known as biomass, and receives a controversial Government subsidy that runs till 2027.
Drax is now lobbying for an extension that would result in households footing a complete invoice of £4.1billion by the top of 2035 – in line with evaluation shared with The Mail on Sunday by power assume tank Ember.
It estimates taxpayers may pay at the very least £425 million to the agency yearly, equal to £15.28 a 12 months slapped on residence power payments.
The Government has been giving firms, together with Drax, cash via its biomass technique because the UK goals to show from fossil fuels in direction of renewable power. Drax obtained £617 million in Government assist final 12 months alone for its biomass items.
Environmentally pleasant?: Drax now produces electrical energy by burning wooden pellets, generally known as biomass, and receives a controversial Government subsidy
But campaigners have lengthy questioned its declare that burning wooden creates ‘renewable’ power.
The Government considers the observe to be inexperienced regardless of carbon dioxide absorbed by timber being launched again into the ambiance in the course of the burning course of.
Also, many of the pellets burned by Drax at its flagship energy station in Yorkshire are imported from forests within the US and Canada.
‘We’ve already given Drax billions in subsidies, and it is made payments dearer whereas in all probability not serving to to cease local weather change,’ stated Phil MacDonald, managing director at Ember.
‘Following the large improve in gasoline costs over the previous couple of years, British individuals merely cannot take greater power payments – we must be investing in clear power which brings down payments, like wind and photo voltaic.’
Matt Williams on the Natural Resources Defence Council stated: ‘The Government’s already wasted billions of bill-payers’ money handing out low-carbon subsidies to British firms that declare to be inexperienced for them to burn North America’s forests in energy stations.’
A Drax spokesman complained of ‘factual inaccuracies’ and ‘misguided assumptions’ within the report, saying: ‘We function below the identical mechanisms that the majority different UK electrical energy mills do.’
Ember stood by its evaluation, highlighting the truth that it primarily based the projections for Government subsidies on Drax annual studies.
A Department for Energy Security and Net Zero spokesperson stated: ‘We don’t recognise these theoretical and extremely speculative figures.
‘Sustainable biomass performs a key position in delivering safer, clear power in Britain, producing 11 per cent of the nation’s whole electrical energy provide final 12 months, supporting our Net Zero goal.’
