Material Insights · Understanding the Material World

Biomass and biofuel stores: Impact and additionality

Replacing coal, if sourcing and kilns get cleaner

What this tab covers The impact and additionality lens: what it displaces on the grid, who gains and who bears the burden along the supply chain, and what happens at end of life.

Biomass stores can displace coal and fossil fuels in hard-to-electrify uses, but their climate value depends on sustainable sourcing and on cutting storage and conversion losses.

Grid decarbonisation versus fossil displacement

Mixed

Stored biomass is dispatchable, so it can replace coal and gas, unlike daily solar shifting. CAQM reported that India's co-firing programme had avoided about 3.5 million tonnes of CO2 by mid-2025. Benefits shrink if biomass is not regrown or if piles rot and emit methane.17

CO2 avoided by Indian co-firing about 3.48 Mt (to Aug 2025)7

Just transition and local community impact

Mixed

Pellet supply chains can pay farmers for crop residue that would otherwise be burned in fields, which contributes to North Indian smog. Charcoal supports large informal workforces in Africa but is linked to land degradation and deforestation; efficient kilns can cut value-chain greenhouse gases by about 80%, according to FAO work cited by ICRAF. Household smoke from cooking with solid fuels and kerosene caused an estimated 2.9 million deaths in 2021, according to WHO.7810

Efficient kiln GHG cut about 80% across the value chain8 Deaths from household air pollution about 2.9 million (2021)10

Circular economy and end of life

Favourable

These stores are consumed, leaving ash; pellet ash is very alkaline (pH about 12) and needs careful disposal or use as a soil additive. Biogas uses waste, and gasifier stoves can return about 20% of fuel as biochar.38

Pellet ash pH about 123 Biochar yield from gasifier stove about 20% of fuel8

Sources

  1. Info-sheet 4: Storage of forest chips (SECURE-BIO-SUPPLY), S. Lieskoski Abo Akademi University, 2025
  2. COFORD Connects note: storage and handling of wood pellets COFORD (Ireland), 2016
  3. Decarbonising coal: co-firing as a viable pathway to cleaner thermal power generation (reporting CAQM and Ministry of Power data) Renewable Watch, 2026
  4. Can woodfuel (charcoal and firewood) be modernized in Africa? (Njenga, Mwampamba, Mendum) ICRAF / Global Landscapes Forum, 2018
  5. Household air pollution and health (fact sheet) World Health Organization, 2025