Energy Policy 33 (2005) 705–716 UK biomass energy since 1990: the mismatch between project types and policy objectives Dan van der Horst* Countryside Agency, John Dower House, Crescent Place, Cheltenham GL50 3RA, UK Abstract Biomass energy is expected to play an important role in achieving the UK government’s ambitious targets to boost renewables. Since1990,themainUKsupportmechanismforrenewableshasbeenthenon-fossilfuelobligation(NFFO).Withonlysevenof22 NFFO contracts for fibrous biomass energy projects now operational, the level of real progress has been disappointing. The government’srenewablespolicyhaschangedovertheyearsandisnowbasedonfiveobjectives.Thepaperaimstoassesswhattypes of biomass energy systems would be most suitable to achieve those objectives. The assessment shows that the nature of the supported developments was inconsistent with most individual objectives. To an important extent this was due to inherent operational contradictions between these objectives. It is argued that the rationale for supporting renewables should primarily lie in reducing greenhouse gas emissions or in energy diversity and security. Support for the rural economy, the development of export technologies and increased competitiveness of renewables, should be seen as desirable longer-term outcomes from the development of a biomass energy sector. By treating these as equals (and even as superiors) to the objectives of climate change and energy diversity, the UK government has actually crippled the development of the biomass energy sector. r 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: Biomass energy; NFFO; Renewables policy 1. Introduction In the aftermath of the first oil crisis, the UK government started a support programme for renewable energy. Until 1990, this programme came mainly in the form of R&D but the ‘‘development of renewable energy technologiesintheUK,apartfromhydroinScotlandand pumped storage in Wales, was very limited’’ (Mitchell, 1996, p. 168). In the period between 1989 and 2001, limited R&D work continued but the main UK programme to stimulate the use of renewable energy has been the non-fossil fuel obligation (NFFO). Under the five bidding rounds which constituted the NFFO programme (for a description of NFFO, see Mitchell, 1995, 1996; Fouquet, 1998; Connor, 2003), electricity producedfromarangeofrenewablesourcescouldbesold to regional electricity companies at a premium, funded through a levy on fossil fuel. Of a total of 3640MWe of various types of renewables contracted under the NFFO programme,only977MWewasinproductiononthefirst of January 2002 (Fig. 1). This amount constitutes about 85% of electricity generated from renewable resources (Meyer,2003).Withrenewableelectricitynowstandingat 3% of national electricity production, NFFO has helped the UK to move from 15th to 14th amongst the 15 EU states with regards to the proportion of energy provided by renewables (Connor, 2003). Some of the early commentators on NFFO argued thatthestatedtargetof1500MWDCNby2000(DOE, 1993) was ‘easily attainable’ considering the huge interest shown by the private sector (Porter and Steen, 1996)oratleast‘unchallenging’and‘short-sighted’inits limited ambition (Elliott, 1996). But this target which was formulated for the first four NFFO rounds (Porter, 1998), was not even achieved with all five rounds in place.Theexpectationthattwo-thirdsofNFFO4–5will come on-line (Mitchell, 1996) now appears rather optimistic. The government’s intermediate target of 5% electricity from renewables by March 2003 has now been missed by about 40%. This very poor level of performance now stands in stark contrast with Tony Blair’s ambition to ‘‘show ARTICLE IN PRESS *Tel.: +44-1242-533453; fax: +44-1242-521381. E-mail address: dan.vanderhorst@countryside.gov.uk (D. van der Horst). 0301-4215/$-see front matter r 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.enpol.2003.09.016