5 November 2025
Today the UK Government has signed a ‘Contract for Difference’ with Drax Group which will allow its biomass power station to receive financial support post March 2027 when its current subsidies run out.
This means that Drax, the UK’s biggest carbon emitter and the world’s biggest tree burner, will be able to continue harming forests, the climate, wildlife and communities and receive subsidies, paid via everybody’s electricity bills that are intended for genuinely low carbon energy generation to do so.
Heads of Terms were agreed earlier this year and at the time the Government was keen to emphasise that Drax would be supported to operate at a maximum load factor of just 27% – operating less than half as often as it currently does. However, what was not made clear in the Energy Minister’s announcement at the time, was that Drax would still be able to generate additional, unsubsidised electricity on top of this.
Drax is now bidding to become an AI data centre ‘clean energy’ campus which would mean burning even more trees, emitting even more carbon and harming even more forests.
Katy Brown, Bioenergy Campaigner, Biofuelwatch said:
“The government has just signed up to four more years of forest damaging, climate harming, nature destroying and community harming tree burning at Drax power station. Across the political spectrum there is a growing consensus that subsidising Drax’s tree burning as a ‘low carbon’ electricity source is wrong headed on many levels, yet the Government has forged ahead with the easy option of relying on Drax for baseload, ignoring models that show Drax is not necessary to balance the grid. They can balance their carbon accounts on paper, while people, animals and the climate suffer as a result.”
Merry Dickinson, Yorkshire based campaigner with the Stop Burning Trees Coalition said:
“It’s outrageous that the government is signing off a lucrative new deal with Drax – a company currently under investigation by the FCA, responsible for destroying forests, polluting communities and workers, and burning a fuel every bit as dirty as coal.
There’s nothing clean, green, or honest about Drax’s operations. This is a handout of billions in public money to a company that’s made its fortune from destruction and deception.
Real climate leadership means backing truly clean, homegrown renewable energy – the kind that cuts emissions, creates good green jobs, and delivers the investment Yorkshire and the rest of the UK deserve, not another payday for big polluters.”
Matt Williams, Senior Advocate for NRDC said:
“This multi-billion contract has been signed without any parliamentary scrutiny. With the Chancellor’s Autumn Budget just days away how can the Government justify raising energy bills and spending billions more on burning trees in power stations?
“Nonetheless, this is just the final step in a policy decision announced back in February – there’s nothing new here. Despite a short contract extension for Drax after 2027 the Government is clearly looking for alternatives to bioenergy. While every single tree burned is one too many, it looks like the 2030s will hail a biomass phase out in the UK.”
Press contact – Katy Brown, biofuelwatch@gmail.com
Notes:
Drax announced the decision this morning
Low-carbon dispatchable CfD contract agreement – Drax Global
Heads of Terms were agreed earlier this year
https://questions-statements.parliament.uk/written-statements/detail/2025-02-10/hlws422
Drax is the UK’s biggest carbon emitter