The Canadian province of Nova Scotia has directed its main electricity producer to ramp up biomass use, starting immediately and continuing for the next two years.
As reported by CBC News, the Tim Houston-led province government has made a regulatory change, which requires Nova Scotia Power to use 160 gigawatt hours of biomass every year until 2027.
This builds from earlier regulatory measures. In 2022, 135 gigawatt hours of electricity-from-biomass were directed to be generated each year until 2025
Energy minister Trevor Boudreau said the province hiked the number so that renewable energy would be on the grid whilst additional wind and solar projects come online.
Although the regulation had previously stipulated that biomass must be a forestry byproduct, the province has removed that provision.
According to a spokesperson for Boudreau's department, it would not make economical sense for the forestry sector to explicitly harvest trees for biomass-only purposes.
"Only sustainably harvested biomass can be used to help Nova Scotia Power meet this standard," they said.
However, Ray Plourde of the Ecology Action Centre said the government's framing of the regulatory change is disingenuous.
"There is nothing clean or green about burning forest biomass to produce electricity," he said in an interview.
Nova Scotia orders its main electricity producer to ramp up biomass use
