Methods for estimating the biomass potential of dense coppice in coppice-with-standard forests in a fast and objective way are currently rare. We adapted existing methodical approaches for biomass estimations from terrestrial laser scanning developed for mature stands in order to perform single scan measurements of diameter at breast height in extremely dense coppice with a stem density of 30,000 ha(-1). Diameter was then used as input for allometric regression models for estimations of the dry weights. As a tribute to the dense stocking on the investigated stands study plots were smaller than in previous studies focusing on mature forests. Results were found to be sound with a mean absolute error of about 6.9 kg which is equal to a relative error of 11.1%. With respect to the strongly reduced amount of field work the method is therefore of high efficiency. With the new approach reliable assessments of the bioenergy potentials become possible for coppice stands, which might play an important role in future tasks of mitigating climate change. (c) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.