The Biomass Action Plan for Scotland was published on Monday 19 March 2007.
Fossil fuels apart, biomass is the only other naturally-occurring, energy-containing carbon resource known that is large enough to be used as a substitute for fossil fuels. Biomass includes plant matter, vegetation and trees, as well as waste biomass such as municipal solid waste (MSW), municipal biosolids (sewage) and animal wastes (manures), forestry and agricultural residues, and certain types of industrial wastes. Unlike fossil fuels, biomass is renewable in the sense that only a short period of time is needed to replace what is used as an energy resource. Biomass is also held to be "carbon neutral", in that the amount of carbon it absorbs while growing is the same as the amount it produces when burned.
Scotland has a potentially huge wood fuel resource arising from its forests and associated timber resource. Biomass energy could be extremely valuable in Scotland, given its lack of intermittency, its ability to meet local and small-scale energy needs and its potential to provide and sustain jobs.
On 31 January 2005, the Biomass Energy Group of the Forum for Renewable Energy Development in Scotland published its report, "Promoting and Accelerating the Market Penetration of Biomass Technology in Scotland".
The Scottish Biomass Support Scheme is now closed to new applications.