Harnessing the untapped potential of biomethane
Tony Green Future of Energy Director
| SGN
SGN's Future of Energy Director Tony Green shares his thoughts on the currently under recognised opportunity presented by biomethane that could help realise the government’s vision to turn the UK into a clean energy superpower1.
As the dust begins to settle from last week’s general election, one of the key takeaways from the campaign was the extent to which energy policy and the UK’s net-zero targets featured, both in terms of manifesto commitments and with the public. With Labour having secured a huge majority, attention will quickly turn to how they will deliver some of their flagship manifesto commitments, including GB Energy and a National Wealth Fund for clean energy technologies. As the energy sector looks to support the Government’s ambitious climate targets, it is striking that there has been very little discussion on the unrealised opportunity that biomethane can play to help decarbonise energy and assist the UK in delivering its net-zero ambitions.
Biomethane is a naturally-occurring clean gas, which is produced when organic material – such as food waste, manure, sewage or crops is broken down. It can be used for heating and cooking just like natural gas. SGN has been pioneering the development and use of biomethane for over a decade, meaning that today we already have the equivalent of more than 316,000 homes being heated with green gas on our network. We are on track to supply the equivalent of 450,000 homes by 2026, and consulting on increasing our ambition to 1 million homes by 2031. Adopting the right policy changes going forward will enable biomethane to play a long-term, enduring role in a whole system approach to decarbonising energy. This is important because, unlike fossil gas, biomethane doesn’t add any new CO2 emissions to the atmosphere, and can actually be produced in a manner that captures excess carbon, making biomethane production carbon-negative.
Prior to the general election, the UK and Scottish Governments both sought views on the future potential of biomethane, yet there is little information about what future role biomethane will play in their future energy plans. Here in Britain we can learn much from the example set by our European neighbours, where countries such as France and Germany have made significant strides forward in increasing their biomethane production. Denmark is another good example, where they produce around 5.6 TWh2 of biomethane a year, which, for a smaller country with lower overall gas demand, is not far behind the UK’s current biomethane output of 7 TWh. Indeed, 34% of Denmark’s energy supply currently comes from biofuels and waste3. At SGN, we feel that the new UK government has a real opportunity to utilise the untapped potential of biomethane and have set out our key policy asks to help boost the amount of renewable gas flowing through our pipes and beyond.
Firstly, recognising there is no silver bullet to reach net-zero, the role of biomethane needs to be elevated by introducing realistic and government-backed national biomethane interim and 2050 targets, in a similar manner to other net-zero technologies such as hydrogen production, offshore wind and heat pump installations. This will create certainty in the market, illicit a need for a delivery roadmap and ensure biomethane is an imperative consideration in future policy decisions.
Strategic support is required from the NESO and local authorities to encourage production and optimise ability to inject biomethane into the gas grid. Increasing strategic focus on optimal locations will unlock greater biomethane capacity for all, as well as helping to overcome potential constraints or blockers such as planning permission or feedstock availability.
Biomethane producers have indicated that this technology has the potential to provide over 100 TWh of energy by 20504, and a proportion of this could even be done without the need for government subsidies in the future, helping to keep bills low for UK households. However, there is no doubt that the continuation of government subsidies – as has been the case with other green technologies – would further encourage the construction of larger production facilities (while smaller plants continue to be viable and complimentary). The current green gas support scheme caps overall production volumes, but also uses a sliding-scale of subsidy that encourages producers to build smaller sites in order to receive the ‘sweet-spot’ of funding, rather than optimise plant design to produce more biomethane from a single facility. Additionally, there is currently a missed opportunity to broaden subsidy eligibility to activities such as conversions of the c.700 biogas Combined Heat and Power (CHP) units in GB5, and cleaning up landfill gases - both of which would help to maximise investment in green gases. The bioeconomy consultants NNFCC have published a report6 stating that converting just 166 ‘high and medium likelihood’ CHP sites here in GB would increase biomethane output by 145%. This represents 16 TWh of potential that could be achieved without constructing any new Anaerobic Digestion (AD) and could be delivered over 10 years for a relatively low cost.
Finally, pragmatic investment in billing systems to more accurately measure the energy content of the gas customers receive will reduce the requirement for additional processing during biomethane production. This also compliments other whole system approaches towards clean energy such as hydrogen blending.
Through supply of low carbon gas to grid-balancing power generators, biomethane provides another means by which the government’s 2030 decarbonisation of the power grid target can be supported. It also provides a net-zero solution that tackles the challenge and intricacies of decarbonising heat, such as customers unable or unwilling to change their heating appliances and it also utilises the existing gas network infrastructure, helping to ensure there is a fair and affordable energy transition for all.
1. https://labour.org.uk/change/make-britain-a-clean-energy-superpower/
2. https://www.grtgaz.com/en/new-gas/anaerobic-digestion-technology#:~:text=These%20figures%20place%20France%20among,by%20Denmark%20with%205.6%20TWh
3. https://www.iea.org/countries/denmark/energy-mix
4. https://www.linkedin.com/posts/future-biogas-ltd_an-open-letter-to-ed-miliband-activity-7216136358581432320-PJBb?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop
5. https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/65df46d5f1cab36b60fc4725/biomethane-production-call-for-evidence.pdf
6. https://www.cngservices.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/Session-2_4-Lucy-Hopwood_Case-for-converting-CHP-to-biomethane_GGD2022.pdf
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