How Net Zero Willow innovations will contribute to increasing sustainable UK biomass supply

Over the last three years, Jamie has been creating some amazing machines that could transform the willow sector. New cutting edge innovations have been developed with tracked and robotic technologies to automate both planting and rod harvesting procedures. Read this article to find out more: Net Zero Willow: Transforming UK Short Rotation Coppice.

The Net Zero Willow All Terrain Base Veicle and Robotic Planting Attachment.

It is possible to estimate the impact of NZW innovations by looking at the current situation regarding the size and value of the UK wood fibre market.

The UK wood fibre market

The most recent Forestry Statistics publication (Forest Research Sept 2024)  indicates the following:

• In 2023, the UK produced 9.1 million green tonnes (MGT) of softwood and 0.8 MGT of hardwood. (This has reduced from 10.05 MGT of softwood and 0.83 MGT of hardwood in 2020).
• Of this 2.4 MGT was used for woodfuel (2.55 MGT in 2020).
• Imports of timber totalled 37.4 million cubic metres (m3) of Wood Raw Material Equivalent (WRME) (48m m3 in 2020).
• Imports typically outstrip indigenous supply by a ratio of 4 to 1.
• The overall UK timber production has been quite static for the last decade whilst the amount of timber consumed is around 20% more than 2010.
• Deliveries of homegrown wood fuel have doubled in the last decade, but this has plateaued in the last three years.
• The area of UK woodland stands at 3.28 m ha.
• 66 thousand ha of new woodland was created in the UK in 2023/24. Of this, 73% of new plantings took place in Scotland and 22% in England.
• The 4,500 ha planted in England is well down on the target of 7,500 ha.
• Since the NZW project started, 60.8 thousand hectares of woodland has been created in the UK.
• Wood products imported into the UK in 2023 were valued at £9.0 billion and included 6.2 million cubic metres of sawn wood, 3.1 m m3 of wood-based panels, 6.4 m tonnes of wood pellets and 4.8 m tonnes of paper.
• Wood pellet imports have fallen from 9.1 m tonnes in 2020, but the value of this market is currently £1.23 billion.
• The UK was the second-largest net importer (imports less exports) of forest products in 2022, behind China.

The key messages from these statistics are that

• Demand continues to outstrip supply.
• The UK imports around 80% of its annual timber requirement and is exposed to the risk of a timber shortage.
• The vast majority of revenue created by the wood fibre and timber sector leaves the UK.
• Although the area of woodland is increasing it is mainly happening in Scotland.
• Despite large subsidies, here is not that much appetite amongst farmers (particularly in England, Wales and Northern Ireland) to plant trees.

The challenge is to:

• Create more indigenous biomass,
• Do this quickly and sustainably,
• Keep more of the revenue from biomass sales in the UK economy, and
• Produce more biomass closer to where it is needed.

How NZW increase UK SRC production and reduce timber imports

SRC willow can tick all these boxes. In addition, the innovations created by NZW can help make this happen. However, in order to do this a market push and a market pull is required. The former needs to be done by well-designed incentive schemes. As more SRC willow is planted, demand will increase, providing the market pull. At some point there will be no further need for subsidies and at that point the wood fibre trade deficit will have been reduced, and more revenue will stay in the UK’s rural economy.

In Jamie’s application for funding he set out aspirations based on what would be achieved by 2030 and 2032. Unfortunately, in the last three years there have been no new incentives. We still hope that this will change, partly through our working with policy makers to provide our views and present evidence. As a result, our aspirations remain the same, but the timeframes are pushed back to 2033 and 2035.

Based on the scale-up potential, we envisage that by 2033 our innovations will be planting and harvesting 6,000 hectares of SRC per year and 10,000 hectares by 2035. This would mean a production of 395,000 green tonnes by 2033 and 658,000 green tonnes by 2035.

Assuming a typical bulk density for raw SRC chip of 225 kg/m3 then this would give a figure of 2.92 m m3 WRME. Hence, in just 10 years from today the three NZW innovations could potentially produce 29.5% of the current total annual UK timber production from an area of just 10,000 hectares. This increase in production could help reduce raw timber imports by 7.8%.

That sounds like a Willow Solution!

The Net Zero Willow project was funded by DESNZ as part of the Biomass Feedstocks Innovation Programme as part of the £1 billion Net Zero Innovation Portfolio.