Wales & West Utilities has linked with Britain’s other gas grid companies to help deliver a biomethane boost to households and businesses.
The gas emergency and pipeline service is part of Energy Networks Association’s Gas Goes Green Customer Forum, which met for the first time recently.
The Forum brings together all five of Britain’s gas networks with green gas producers and leading representatives of the biomethane industry 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.
The 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.
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 make sure they are simplified and standardised across the country.
As independent research sets out, converting our existing safe and reliable gas network to green gas will help the UK get to Net Zero more sustainably and affordably than alternatives, while minimising disruption to energy consumers.
“At Wales & West Utilities we’ve pledged to deliver a Net Zero ready gas network by 2035 and are already preparing the gas network across Wales and south west England to be ready for green gases like biomethane and hydrogen.
"We’re delighted be part of this pioneering collaboration between gas networks and biomethane producers, helping to overcome the barriers to connecting more green gas projects to our network.
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.