The UK Government's Department of Business, Energy, and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) has announced that 24 projects will receive government funding of up to GBP200 000 (≈ EUR 233 600) from the government’s Biomass Feedstocks Innovation Programme to increase UK production of biomass that can be used as sources of green energy. The projects will boost biomass productivity in the UK, through breeding, planting, cultivating, and harvesting organic energy materials.
According to BEIS, the 24 innovative projects, which range from start-ups and family-run businesses to research institutes and universities, will receive funding of up to GBP200 000 (≈ EUR 233 600) from the government’s Biomass Feedstocks Innovation Programme.
The programme is funded through BEIS’s £1 billion Net Zero Innovation Portfolio, which aims to accelerate the commercialization of innovative clean energy technologies and processes through the 2020s and 2030s.
This competition is being conducted in 2 phases, one building on the other, to produce innovations that address some of the barriers to feedstock production, helping to scale up the supply of UK sustainable biomass in the coming years.
Biomass materials include non-food energy crops such as grasses and hemp, material from forestry operations, and marine-based materials such as algae and seaweed. The funded projects will boost biomass productivity in the UK, through breeding, planting, cultivating, and harvesting organic energy materials.
Biomass is a small but important part of the renewable energy mix that the UK requires to meet its commitment to eradicate its contribution to climate change by 2050 – and is also backed by the UK’s independent Committee on Climate Change (CCC).
Working to develop new and greener types of fuel like biomass is an important part of building a diverse and green energy mix that we will need to achieve our climate change targets. We are backing UK innovators to ensure we have a homegrown supply of biomass materials, which is part of our wider plans to continue driving down carbon emissions as we build back greener, Energy Minister Lord Callanan said.
The UK government intends to publish a new biomass strategy in 2022 which will review the amount of sustainable biomass available to the UK and how this could be best utilized across the economy to help achieve the government’s net-zero and wider environmental commitments.
