Planning permission for a biomass plant in Diemen has been scrapped after a court ruling saying the environmental effects first need to be investigated.

The Raad van State has reversed planning permission given by Noord-Holland province for the development on Vattenfall ground in Diemen where there are already two gas plants and an auxiliary heating plant.

The biomass plant was intended to burn a maximum of 212 kilotons of wooden pellets – a kiloton measure representing 1000 tons of a million kilograms. It is part of Vattenfall’s strategy to move away from fossil fuels, but there is some debate about the environmental credentials of biomass-based energy.

The Mobilisation for the Environment (MOB) campaign group protested the planning permission in Diemen, saying that a report should have been done on the environmental impact of the plant because the pellets were effectively litter. The court found that this was indeed the case.

The province now needs to make a new decision on the planning application after an environmental report has been completed. MOB has also protested two other permits granted to energy provider Vattenfall.