Have you played 1.0 yet? You can automate a lot of the biomass process now that the main biomass burners (I.e. Not the ones attached to the hub) have conveyer belt inputs.
I basically set up two industrial storage bins at the beginning of a biomass production line, one for wood and one for leaves. Each bin feeds into a constructor that turns the associated raw resource into biomass. Then feed those biomass constructors into another constructor that makes solid biofuel. Finally hook that up to the generators and all you have to do is spend a few minutes every hour or so collecting leaves and wood to dump in the storage bins.
It's still enough work that automating coal is a huge priority, but it's not as tedious as it used to be at all.
Glad I could help you guys!
The biggest reason I switched to coal was actually just for more power output. If you load balance biomass into generators efficiently, it's pretty easy to have upwards of a couple dozen of them. But they just don't output as much power as the coal generator upgrade.