New report: The potential role for biomass as a long-duration store of energy

The Supergen Bioenergy Hub together with the UK Energy Research Centre (UKERC) have commissioned Mike Colechin and Keelan Colechin from Cultivate Innovation to produce a scoping study exploring the potential for biomass to act as a flexible, low-carbon store of energy within the UK energy system.

The executive summary is available to download below. The full report will be published following a presentation from Keelan Colechin at the Supergen Bioenergy Hub Annual Assembly on 11 November 2025.

Executive summary: The potential role for biomass as a long-duration store of energy

About the study

There is an increasing requirement for long-duration energy storage to accommodate seasonal and weather-related variations in wind and solar electricity generation. Government targets for the decarbonisation of the UK energy system are leading to large-scale deployment of these renewable generation technologies to displace the use of fossil fuels for electricity generation and in the heat and transport sectors.

This study draws on knowledge from around 50 public, private and academic-sector stakeholders to explore the implications of the current national strategy on the biomass sector. This has been set by the UK’s National Energy System Operator (NESO) who have identified that biomass “provides a renewable low carbon power source” that can be used as dispatchable generation to “help meet demand during times of low wind and solar output”, contributing to the delivery of a more resilient energy supply. However, where carbon capture and storage (CCS) is installed to create a “negative emissions” BECCS system, NESO suggest that higher load factors would be desirable to “maximise carbon removal from the atmosphere”.

This study has established that bioenergy supply chains already store energy over prolonged periods, and that there is potential to make use of this characteristic to address the seasonal variations in wind and solar renewables output that affect electricity, heat and gas markets. There are multiple options for delivering system flexibility with biomass. Additional work will be needed to establish the scale of this potential on a commercial basis and in the context of the wider economy.