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Drax has not reported the burn of primary forests in Canada, found the BBC News
A British power plant that has received billions of pounds in government subsidies failed more than once to report it in burnt wood from primary forests, BBC News revealed.
The Drax power plant, which burns wooden lozenges, is necessary to point out where it is supplied with wood and if it comes from natural and previously intact forests.
The company paid a penalty of 25 million pounds sterling last year for having distorted this data following a survey by the energy regulator ofgem and now the BBC discovered an additional year of false declaration which does not was not examined by the regulator.
The company did not deny having a poor declaration of its data on sustainability, but said that it “focused on the implementation of learned lessons”.
The power plant, a coal factory converted to the North Yorkshire, generates around 6% of the United Kingdom electricity and has received billions of pounds of government grants and payers because wood combustion is classified as renewable energy source.
The BBC Panorama and BBC News previously reported that Drax held operating operating licenses in British Columbia, Canada, and used wood, including whole trees, primary and old forests for its pastilles.
These are natural forests that have never been recorded industrially and lock and store large quantities of carbon and provide key fauna habitats.
The company says that it does not have forests or sawmills, more offers for operating licenses and has stopped obtaining wood on certain sites, where the government of British Columbia has asked companies to stop more from the logging.
However, the files of public exploitation of the public show that Drax is still obtaining whole trees of primary forests which are killed by other companies in the province, despite its own criteria of sustainability that the company “will avoid damage or Disturbances of high carbon forests “which” can be defined as primary forest “.
Modern industrial recording did not really start inside British Columbia in the 1960s, which means that the areas that have been recorded and replanted in recent decades are not yet mature enough for these plantations are harvested.
Almost all the industrial journalizations which take place inside the province come from “the wood of the native species where there is no clearly visible indication of human activities and the ecological processes are not considerably disturbed”, the Label used by OFGEM to define primary forests.
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Drax generates around 6% of the United Kingdom electricity
Drax had to point out to OFGEM that he had drawn from the wood from these areas, but the data obtained by the BBC through requests for environmental information show that the company has not declared primary forest wood in the data of Sustainability which it has submitted to the regulator concerning its Canadian wood pellets for the year 2020-2010.
That year, Drax burned just over 1.2 million tonnes of Canada wood pellets, with a significant proportion from primary forests inside British Columbia.
The company did not answer BBC questions on the reasons for which it had distorted its data on sustainability and if it had mislead the government and the energy regulator on its use of primary forest wood.
Drax seems to have since reduced his dependence on Canadian wood. The company said only about 2.5% of the granules used in its power plant in 2023 came from British Columbia, mainly public forests that were designated for harvest.
The company said that it “recognizes the importance of biomass of sustainable origin, and we strive to guarantee that our granules are legally harvested and meet the strict requirements of sustainability of the United Kingdom governments, the United States and Canada, as well as those of the EU “.
The current criteria of sustainability of the United Kingdom biomass does not prohibit the whole trees of the primary forests used for wood pellets.
The company added that the false statement previously identified by OFGEM was “of a technical nature” and “would not have had an impact on the levels of rocks (grants) won”.
According to ofgem, precise data on sustainability allow the government “to understand and monitor the extent to which primary forests and saw blogs are used in woody biomass, which has consequences on carbon emissions and biodiversity” .
Following their survey last year and the penalty of 25 million pounds sterling of Drax for erroneous data, the regulator of Ofgem said that it “would not hesitate to act” in the event of additional report .
However, when approached by the BBC, the regulator did not commit to any specific action concerning the additional wrong discovered by the BBC.
In a statement, a OFGEM spokesperson said: “We thank the BBC for sharing this information which relates to the same problem that has been identified in our Drax investigation.”
They added that Ofgem means that Drax “leads an independent external audit complete with its profiling data from the global supply chain to satisfy the processes and appropriate American controls are in place for the future” and added: “If Additional evidence is revealing after the audit, we will investigate again.
Drax’s current renewable subsidy subsidies ended in 2027 and the discovery of DREAT BBC data on sustainability by DRAX intervenes while the government should announce an extension of DRAX grants with imminence.
The government says it plans to carefully modify the current criteria for the sustainability of biomass and will make an update shortly, but has not confirmed if it will prevent primary forests from being used for wood pellets.
A spokesperson for the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero said: “The situation we inherited for large-scale biomass generators was unacceptable.
“Ofgem had to undertake another audit and they work in close collaboration with Drax to ensure that any deformation error does not happen again.”
