Norfolk and Suffolk is already a leading area for animal waste biomass installations, with a third of the national capacity at two large power stations near Thetford in Norfolk and Eye in Suffolk. Snetterton in Norfolk is also home to one of the UK’s newest straw-fed biomass plants. Overall, the East of England has more than 560MW of installed bio-energy capacity across 181 sites.

The bioenergy industry is worth nearly £2bn and is based on the scale of agriculture locally, with 13.7 per cent of England’s crop output and 9 per cent of the livestock output. Norfolk and Suffolk is the largest straw-producing area in the UK, with 313,000 hectares of cereals and 60,000 hectares of oilseed crops, with an estimated straw yield of 1.06m tonnes per year. With the region’s sizeable agri-food sector, animal waste and biomass present a significant opportunity for sustainable energy generation.