Burnham's energy plan overlooks green gas
On 29th September, the government announced the Great British Grid, a new publicly owned body within Great British Energy that will invest in electricity network infrastructure. The aim is faster grid connections, more competition in transmission projects and lower costs. Few would argue that Britain's grid needs work.
The anaerobic digestion sector (the industry that collects organic wastes and converts them into renewable biogas), however, says the plan looks at only half the picture.
The Anaerobic Digestion and Bioresources Association (ADBA) argues that the announcement focuses entirely on wires and leaves out green gas, meaning biomethane made from food waste, sewage, manures and farm residues. Its December 2024 report, produced with Business Modelling Applications, found that expanding biomethane could cut the cost of reaching net zero by £298 billion by 2050, or about £415 a year for every household. ADBA says the modelling uses the same system assumptions as the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, and the National Energy System Operator.
The logic comes down to storage and timing. Solar and wind are cheap to generate but not always available when demand peaks on a dark winter evening. Biomethane is chemically identical to fossil gas, so it can be stored and moved through pipes that the country already owns, then burned when needed. The report also points to savings from building less wind overcapacity (when wind farms generate more electricity than the grid can absorb or demand requires, leading to wasted energy) and fewer new transmission lines.
Subscribe to our fortnightly newsletter
Get our top stories straight to your inbox every two weeks and stay informed about plastic pollution!
Speed is vital. ADBA cites the National Audit Office's estimate that transmission upgrades will cost around £70 billion, with skills and supply chain shortages meaning equipment ordered today will not arrive until at least 2029. It says that backing biomethane with uncommitted Great British Energy funding could bring an extra 10TWh of energy online by 2030. ADBA chair Chris Huhne also points to France, which has some of Europe's cheapest electricity and is still growing its green gas sector faster than anywhere else.
A few caveats are worth considering, however.
1) ADBA is an industry body and commissioned the research itself, so its figures deserve independent scrutiny.
2) The government says the Great British Grid will complement existing institutions, and its long-term budget is still to be settled in a future spending review.
3) The report finds that savings peak at around 100TWh of biomethane by 2050, and fall if the sector expands much beyond that.
The question for policymakers is whether electricity and gas should be planned as one system. On ADBA's evidence, leaving green gas out of the conversation could prove an expensive omission.
+++++++++++++++++
For more information contact: info@scarabtrust.org.uk
Image: Biogas plant - Photo by Julia Koblitz on Unsplash (ST ref: 1434)
ID 240300-B
Comments