The UK government’s bioenergy strategy anticipates the cultivation of between 300,000 and 900,000 ha of energy crops by 2030. Yet policy incentives to promote uptake of perennial energy crops (PECs), notably the English Energy Crops Scheme (ECS), have had little impact. Less than 10,000 ha of PECs were being grown in 2013. To investigate the barriers to deployment a critical literature review and stakeholder interviews were conducted. These identified numerous substantial obstacles regarding PEC economics, alignment with existing institutions and factors affecting risk perception. Many of these are interdependent and involve a broad range of stakeholders. Agent-based modelling is proposed as an approach to explore the cumulative impacts of individual stakeholders’ behaviours under alternative policy and market conditions.