Households and businesses set to benefit from biomethane boost

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While there is much talk about hydrogen as a potential replacement for natural gas in the drive towards net zero emissions, green gas is often overlooked yet its biomethane is already here and has there potential to scale rapidly. With this non mind, Britain’s gas grid companies are set to help deliver a biomethane boost, as Energy Networks Association’s Gas Goes Green Customer Forum meets today for the first time.

The Forum will bring together all five of Britain’s gas networks with gas producers and leading representatives of the biomethane industry, including the Association of Renewable Energy and Clean Technology (REA), and the Anaerobic Digestion & Bioresources Association (ADBA), to agree as a community how they can speed up and simplify the way new sources of green gas connect to Britain’s world leading gas networks.

Energy Networks Association’s Gas Goes Green programme is forecasting that up to a third of Britain’s gas supplies will be sourced from biomethane by 2050 with it working in partnership with hydrogen to replace natural gas, including in those areas of the country where hydrogen production might be more difficult. ADBA estimates that the anaerobic digestion sector could reach its full potential for biomethane production by as soon as 2030.

The Gas Goes Green Customer Forum will review and make changes to the processes that biomethane producers use to connect to the grid, the commercial arrangements needed to do so and the standards they have to follow, to ensure they are simplified and standardised across the country. These changes will be delivered through a Connections Action Plan, with updates provided through the Forum. The Forum will also identify and remove any barriers, share best practice, enable other efficiencies and improvements, and respond to industry developments.

Specifically, it will:

  • Give customers, stakeholders and network companies the opportunity to present issues and challenges, for discussion by the Forums to voice and record industry feedback.
  • Establish, maintain and develop the Connections Standard Methodology (CSM) which would set out how each gas network around the country undertakes the connection, commissioning, maintenance, and operation for gas to grid distributed gas projects.
  • The networks will establish, maintain and review an Action Plan for all the entry improvement initiatives including changes to the CSM, with additions to the Action Plan being made in response to issues raised by customers and stakeholders.
  • Address the need for any updates on wider industry developments impacting gas producers and stakeholders.

Chris Train, ENA’s Gas Goes Green champion, says, “With so much excitement about hydrogen at the moment, it’s important not to forget the vital role that biomethane has to play. Not only can it deliver a lot of the energy we all need, but it can do so without our households and businesses needing to change the appliances they rely upon whilst boosting local supply chains in the process.

“The new Gas Goes Green Customer Forum is a signal from Britain’s gas network companies that they are serious about scaling up the role that biomethane has to play in delivering the world’s first zero carbon gas grid here in the UK.”

Charlotte Morton, ADBA Chief Executive, says, “As we in the industry know, biomethane has huge potential to cut emissions today and in the hardest to decarbonise sectors such as transport and heating.  However, many outside of the industry are still unaware in particular that biomethane is a technology already in production and capable of scaling up fast now, and therefore the only option for decarbonising how we heat our homes available today.

“Moreover, it does so using the existing gas network infrastructure and most importantly, without the need for households to replace their gas boilers. In the future, as the technology challenges to hydrogen are overcome, biomethane will also be able to support the production of green hydrogen.”

1 COMMENT

  1. Biogas from non food waste sources is a scam, and hugely damaging to the environment. At approx. 1 acre of arable land per kW, it is hugely inefficient. Also, the best possible Anaerobic Digestion will only yield around 56% CH4 at best, and more often around 50%. The balance is CO2, so where is the logic in this?

    The hundreds of tons of highly acidic slurry (pH3) that is disposed of as a “fertilizer” onto farmland eventually winds up in waterways, causing acidification and destruction of waterways.

    Biogas from agricultural feedstock is a complete and utter waste, and should be banned. The Biogas companies are only in it for the sudsidies (i.e. Taxpayers money). It is a complete and utter scam, and eventually the chickens will come home to roost.

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