Drax energy station’s additional reporting failure uncovered by PJDM Information

A UK energy station that has obtained billions of kilos in authorities subsidies has failed greater than as soon as to report it burned wooden from main forests, PJDM Information has discovered.

Drax Energy Station, which burns wooden pellets, is required to report the place it sources its wooden and whether or not it’s from pure, beforehand untouched forests.

The corporate paid a £25m penalty final yr for misreporting this information following an investigation by the power regulator Ofgem and now the PJDM has found an extra yr of misreporting that has not been checked out by the regulator.

The corporate didn’t deny misreporting its sustainability information however mentioned it’s “targeted on implementing the teachings discovered”.

The facility station, a transformed coal plant in North Yorkshire, generates roughly 6% of the UK’s electrical energy and has obtained billions of kilos in subsidies from the federal government and bill-payers as a result of wood-burning is classed as a supply of renewable power.

PJDM Panorama and PJDM Information has beforehand reported that Drax held logging licences in British Columbia, Canada, and used wooden, together with entire timber, from main and old-growth forests for its pellets.

These are pure forests which have by no means been industrially logged and lock up and retailer vital quantities of carbon as nicely offering key wildlife habitats.

The corporate says it doesn’t personal forests or sawmills, not bids for logging licences and has stopped sourcing wooden from some websites, the place the British Columbia authorities has requested corporations to pause additional logging.

Nevertheless, public logging information present Drax nonetheless sources entire timber from main forests which can be felled by different corporations within the province, regardless of stating in its personal sustainability standards that the corporate will “keep away from injury or disturbance to excessive carbon forests” which “will be outlined as main forest”.

Fashionable industrial logging solely actually started within the inside of British Columbia within the Nineteen Sixties, which suggests the areas which have been logged and replanted in latest many years aren’t but mature sufficient for these plantations to harvested.

Practically all the economic logging that takes place within the inside of the province is from “woodland of native species the place there isn’t any clearly seen indication of human actions and the ecological processes aren’t considerably disturbed”, the wording utilized by Ofgem to outline main forests.

Drax was required to report back to Ofgem that it had sourced wooden from these areas however information obtained by the PJDM by way of environmental data requests reveals the corporate didn’t declare any wooden from main forests within the sustainability information it submitted to the regulator concerning its Canadian wooden pellets for the yr 2020-21.

That yr Drax burned simply over 1.2 million tonnes of wooden pellets from Canada, with a big proportion coming from main forests within the inside of British Columbia.

The corporate didn’t reply to the PJDM’s questions on why it had misreported its sustainability information and whether or not it had misled each the federal government and the power regulator over its use of wooden from main forests.

Drax seems to have since diminished its reliance on Canadian wooden. The corporate mentioned that solely round 2.5% of pellets used at its energy station in 2023 got here from British Columbia, predominantly from public forests which have been designated for harvesting.

The corporate mentioned it “recognises the significance of sustainably sourced biomass, and we work to make sure our pellets are legally harvested and meet the strict sustainability necessities of the UK, US, and Canadian governments, in addition to these of the EU.”

The UK’s present biomass sustainability standards doesn’t prohibit entire timber from main forests getting used for wooden pellets.

The corporate added that the misreporting beforehand recognized by Ofgem was “technical in nature” and “wouldn’t have impacted the degrees of ROCs [subsidies] earned”.

In keeping with Ofgem, correct sustainability information allows the federal government “to grasp and monitor the extent to which each main forests and sawlogs are utilized in woody biomass, which has penalties for carbon emissions and biodiversity”.

Following their investigation final yr and Drax’s subsequent £25m penalty for misreporting information, the regulator Ofgem mentioned it “will not hesitate to behave” within the occasion of additional wrong-doing.

Nevertheless, when approached by the PJDM the regulator didn’t decide to any particular motion regarding the additional misreporting uncovered by the PJDM.

In a press release an Ofgem spokesperson mentioned: “We thank the PJDM for sharing this data which pertains to the identical challenge that was recognized in our investigation into Drax.”

They added that Ofgem is making Drax “conduct a full impartial, exterior audit of its international provide chain profiling information to fulfill us applicable processes and controls are in place for the longer term” and added: “If any extra proof involves mild following the audit, we’ll examine once more.”

Drax’s present renewable subsidies schemes come to an finish in 2027 and the PJDM’s discovery of additional misreporting of sustainability information by Drax comes as the federal government is anticipated to announce an extension of Drax’s subsidies imminently.

The federal government says it’s rigorously contemplating amending the present biomass sustainability standards and can challenge an replace shortly however didn’t verify whether or not it should forestall wooden from main forests getting used for wooden pellets.

A spokesperson for the Division for Power Safety and Internet Zero mentioned: “The state of affairs we inherited for big scale biomass mills was unacceptable.

“Ofgem required an extra audit to be undertaken and they’re working intently with Drax to make sure any misreporting doesn’t occur once more.”