Global biopower capacity continues to expand, yet the pace of new construction is cooling, and investors are becoming more selective about which projects they back.
According to GlobalData, net annual capacity additions fell from a peak of 12.6GW in 2021 to just 4.1GW in 2025.
Even so, installed capacity climbed to 183.2GW and annual generation reached 754.8TWh.
By 2035, GlobalData projects capacity will reach 247.5GW, with generation rising to 1,085.4TWh.
Those figures describe the scale of the market, not necessarily how future projects will compete for capital.
Analysts note that the easier era of building subsidised renewable generation is fading.
Increasingly, new investment must displace an existing cost, fuel source or system constraint rather than simply add clean electricity to the grid.
Biomethane illustrates the trend clearly.
In mature biogas markets, capital is shifting away from on site electricity generation and toward upgrading raw biogas into renewable natural gas that can substitute for fossil gas in heating, industry, transport and flexible power generation.
Because this gas can move through existing pipelines and storage networks, developers can reach customers without building new delivery infrastructure, an advantage that is reshaping who owns these projects.
Where biogas plants were once developed largely by farmers, cooperatives and municipalities under feed in tariffs, larger biomethane platforms are now drawing infrastructure funds, private equity, utilities and major energy companies seeking long term exposure to renewable gas.
Waste to energy facilities follow a related pattern, deriving value both from the electricity they generate and the municipal waste they process.
In regions where landfill capacity is limited or methane emissions are a growing concern, the disposal service a plant provides can matter as much as its power output.
Dispatchable biopower plants also offer grid operators a way to balance systems increasingly reliant on variable wind and solar generation, provided markets reward that reliability.
Geography remains a major factor.
Asia Pacific held 90.3GW of biopower capacity in 2025, up from 63.4GW in 2020, and is expected to reach 137.0GW by 2035.
China alone accounted for 47.4GW in 2025 and is forecast to supply more than half of global capacity additions over the next decade, eventually holding roughly a third of worldwide capacity by 2035.
Europe, by contrast, is nearing saturation, with capacity expected to grow modestly from 50.4GW in 2025 to 61.7GW in 2035, shifting the region’s focus toward repowering and upgrading existing assets.
Feedstock reliability is emerging as a central investment risk.
Solid biofuels still made up 69.5 per cent of global biopower capacity in 2025, and Enviva’s Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing in March 2024 underscored how concentrated pellet supply chains can threaten project reliability.
Meanwhile, carbon capture is opening new revenue possibilities, exemplified by Stockholm Exergi’s 2025 final investment decision on a bioenergy carbon capture project expected to remove 800,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide annually starting in 2028.
Industry observers suggest that as the sector matures, projects offering multiple functions, generating power while also treating waste, replacing fossil fuel or capturing carbon, may prove more resilient than those relying on electricity sales alone.