DECC's energy sustainability criteria reignites biomass row

Opinion is divided over the merits and efficacy of DECC’s biomass energy sustainability criteria issued on 22 August.

The criteria make future Renewables Obligation (RO) subsidy support for biomass energy conditional on carbon savings and land use sustainability.

But the government’s publication of long-awaited sustainability safeguards appears to have done little to defuse the disagreement between the renewables industry and environmental groups over the climate impacts of biomass energy.