Pollybell Farms and Flogas Britain have announced a strategic partnership to address one of the UK’s most pressing decarbonisation challenges: how to provide low-carbon, high heat energy for the two million households and businesses that rely on off-grid LPG.
The collaboration brings together Pollybell’s expertise in sustainable farming and integrated land-use systems with Flogas Britain’s long-standing role as a leading supplier of LPG and future low-carbon fuels. Together, the partners will explore the production and distribution of renewable dimethyl ether (rDME), a replacement for fossil LPG.
The partnership is being advanced through RePeat, a £2.4 million research and development project led by Pollybell Farm in collaboration with Flogas Britain and the University of Lincoln. RePeat has secured funding from Defra’s Farming Innovation Programme, delivered in partnership with Innovate UK, to investigate a new circular farming and fuel model that integrates food production, renewable energy and land-use change at the farm scale.
The project brings together proven technologies and examines how English farmers can remain productive while responding to climate pressures, volatile markets and the transition to a low-carbon economy.
At the heart of RePeat is the development of an on farm rDME production facility. Using farm-grown biomass as a feedstock, the project will explore how renewable fuel production can sit alongside commercial farming, while co-products such as heat and captured CO₂ are reused to support year-round food production. The approach is designed to demonstrate how agriculture can play a direct role in supplying low-carbon fuels for rural and off-grid energy users.
The provenance of rDME through the RePeat system creates opportunity to produce a significantly negative carbon intensity fuel. This rDME can then be blended with LPG to create a low carbon fuel which is a drop-in replacement for fossil LPG and can be used within existing domestic and commercial infrastructure without the need for disruptive changes to appliances.
Geoff Mullett, Business Development Manager – Fuels, Flogas Britain, said, “This partnership with Pollybell is about starting from real-world challenges and solving them collaboratively. RePeat allows us to explore how renewable, farm-derived fuels like rDME could provide a credible, low-carbon alternative to LPG for rural homes and businesses. It’s a practical approach, grounded in working farms and existing energy systems.”
James Brown, Managing Director, Pollybell Farm, said, “RePeat brings together farmers and industry, integrating technologies into a single farming system. The innovation lies in how these elements are connected to support sustainable food production, farm resilience and lower-carbon fuels. This project is an exciting opportunity to diversify the range of crops we can offer our customers.”
