Drax Power has agreed to pay £25 million into Ofgem’s redress fund over failings in governance and controls over the profile of its biomass fuel.
Among other failings, Drax Power was unable to provide Ofgem with sufficient evidence demonstrating how its annual profiling submission had been arrived at, and it could not support the reliability of its reporting of forestry type and sawlogs for Canadian consignments for the year to March 2022.
Ofgem opened its investigation into whether Drax Power Limited was in breach of annual profiling reporting requirements relating to the Renewables Obligation (RO) scheme and other matters on 31 May 2023. Under the RO, Drax claims ROCs in respect of electricity generated from woody biomass that meets the greenhouse gas criteria and the land criteria. Drax is required to report to Ofgem on the types of biomass that it has used.
The investigation focused on the data governance and controls Drax had in place to inform its reporting of profiling data to Ofgem. The investigation concluded that there was an absence of adequate data governance and controls in place, which meant Drax misreported data in relation to its annual profiling submission and was unable to support the reliability of its profiling data reporting of forestry type and sawlogs.
Ofgem said it did not find any evidence to suggest that Drax had been issued with RO certificates incorrectly. In the 2023/24 year Drax was issued ROCs at an estimated value of £548 million.
A miniscule fine for a company that cannot back up its own claims to sustainability – claims for which it gets massive taxpayer support.
It’s time to ax Drax. How can governments justify subsidizing this called green energy that has to pay fines for its lack of ability to actually produce evidence that it is sustainable?
In North Carolina, USA, Enviva the pelletizer is rendering whole trees into sawdust, prior to packing them into pellets that ships later carry 3,800 miles across the Atlantic, to Britain, spewing 5,000 tons of CO2 in the crossing before the pellets are burned with coal to generate about 10 hours of electricity for less than ten percent of Britain’s population. That said, I wonder if Drax is reporting the names of the North Carolina trees it burns? If not, here are a few: Water Oak, Overcup Oak, White Oak, Swamp Chestnut Oak, Willow Oak, Red Oak, Laurel Oak, , Black Tupelo, Shagbark Hickory, Mockernut Hickory, Pignut Hickory, Water Hickory, Green Ash, and collateral trees including Baldcypress, Pond Cypress, Pond Pine, Loblolly Pine, Longleaf Pine, Sweetgum, Tulip Poplar, Sycamore, and truly too many other species to list here. Drax likely doesn’t report the thousands of salamanders, frogs, turtles, lizards, snakes, and ground and tree-nesting birds and mammals, that get crushed and ground into the 160 acres of soil rolled-over every day by Enviva’s contract logging equipment, weighing 25 to 50 tons each, as they crisscross a landscape once supporting diverse shrubs, vines, and wildflowers that comprise the forest understory. It’s the ecological carnage Drax leaves in its wake that they prefer British ratepayers not see or understand. Instead, Drax seemingly prefers it to be our nightmare to witness and suffer. Sometimes energy schemes are as stupid as they appear. It just takes observation to bring them into focus. The biofuel industry is about economic wants for a few, not ecologic needs for the rest of us. Think environmental justice for all.
Well said. The biodiversity destruction caused by by Enviva on behalf of Drax in North Carolina is massive. If my understanding is correct, logging like this would not be allowed in the UK. Yet, the massive subsidy the UK government is paying Drax is causing it to happen in North Carolina.
This 25 million pound fine is one more example of why Drax’s record from British Columbia to Mississippi to Westminster makes it unworthy of the massive subsidy that it is receiving.
It would be interesting to know whether data from British Columbia prompted the penalty – not least because 1) Drax is that province’s leading exporter of pellets and 2) Drax’ Vice President of Sustainability for Drax North America was previously the province’s Chief Forester.