Biomass plants can currently receive both government subsidies and guarantees of origin. This hinders the expansion of wind and solar energy and distorts the energy market.

This is the main message of a new report from the Danish Green Transition Denmark.

Both subsidy-free and state-subsidized electricity production with renewable energy now has the option of being issued guarantees of origin. This means that even biomass plants that have received state support are also issued guarantees of origin, which can be sold on to companies that want to buy green electricity.

However, it helps to distort the Danish energy market and in practice, electrification is delayed by the fact that biomass plants both receive government support and also receive additional financial gains by selling guarantees of origin.

In this note, the Green Transition Denmark has analyzed the expected effects of phasing out the issuance for renewable electricity production from biomass plants that have been commissioned with state support outside a tender procedure.