Bio-energy Capital Grants Scheme
The Bio-energy Capital Grants Scheme (BECGS) was launched in February 2002. The £66m scheme is jointly-funded by BERR and the National Lottery’s New Opportunities Fund. The aim of the BECGS scheme was to help encourage the efficient use of biomass, particularly energy crops, for energy production by stimulating the early deployment of biomass-fuelled heat and electricity-generation projects with new technologies.
The Scheme has supported 21 bio-energy projects ranging from the installation of heat cluster technology, Combined Heat and Power (CHP) to larger-scale projects over 20MW deploying state-of-the-art thermal combustion and advanced conversion technology.
Notable projects under the Scheme include:
- construction of 44MW wood-fuelled power station at Lockerbie in Scotland, the UK’s largest dedicated biomass project
- 30MW SembCorp biomass power plant on Teesside which was formally opened by Malcolm Wicks, Minister for Energy on 12 November 2007
- 2MW power / 10MW heat biomass CHP and pellet production project at Enniskillen, Northern Ireland.
The BECGS is now closed to new applications.
Capital grants for smaller-scale biomass boilers now emanate from DEFRA, where applications for heat and CHP projects are being assessed. Full details are available on the Defra: Bio-energy Capital Grants Scheme webpage.