https://www.theguardian.com/business/2026/apr/16/drax-renewable-energy-subsidies-wood-pellets
Company has received about £8.7bn in renewable energy subsidies since 2012, despite claims wood pellets are not sourced sustainably
The owner of the Drax power plant in North Yorkshire received record subsidies of almost £1bn for burning trees to generate electricity in 2025, a climate thinktank has calculated.
The company was paid £999m last year for generating about 4.5% of Great Britain’s electricity from its biomass plant, costing each household £13 a year, according to analysts at Ember.
The power plant was able to claim £2.7m a day from energy bills in part by increasing its power generation by about 2% from the year before – but mostly due to the rising payouts from a legacy renewables support scheme.
Drax has claimed a total of about £8.7bn in renewable energy subsidies since 2012, despite persistent claims from campaigners and scientists that the wood pellets burned at its power plant are not sourced sustainably and may be increasing carbon emissions.
The allegations have raised concerns in Westminster over the company’s claims that the millions of tonnes of wood pellets produced by its Canadian subsidiary use only low-value waste wood from sustainably managed forests.
The Guardian revealed last November that forestry experts believed the company was burning 250-year-old trees sourced from some of Canada’s oldest forests as recently as last summer, despite growing scrutiny of its sustainability claims.
…
Article continues at https://www.theguardian.com/business/2026/apr/16/drax-renewable-energy-subsidies-wood-pellets
