In the letter, Chris Huhne, former Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change and now Chairman of ADBA, urged the government to consider AD and biogas as shorter-term solutions to the ongoing crises.
By rapidly deploying AD plants, the UK could both increase its energy security and reduce costs for consumers.
“Biogas derived from organic wastes can provide a substantial alternative to gas imports while also generating revenue for the Treasury that could be used to alleviate consumer bills,” he writes.
With the government having omitted biogas or biomethane from the UK’s Energy Strategy published in April, Huhne explained that scaling up the existing fleet could produce more energy and building of new plants could be expedited to meet short-term challenges.
Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine earlier this year, Europe was plunged into a gas crisis and countries were sent scampering for alternatives.
Suggesting a solution, Huhne explained, “More biogas is as an essential response to the Russian gas crisis, as many of our neighbours are proposing.”
“The EU plans to double biogas output to meet 9% of last year’s gas demand. By contrast, in the UK, current government plans would meet less than 1% of our 2021 consumption.”
According to Huhne, this scaling up could could reduce annual greenhouse gas emissions by 6%.
AD and biogas technology transforms organic waste into valuable bioresources and captures harmful GHG emissions.
By recycling through AD, these emissions are captured and the oragnic wastes turned into a storable, biogas, bio-CO2 and bio-fertiliser.
Huhne called on the UK government to focus on three key areas to ensure growth of the AD and biogas industry:
– accelerating the implementation of mandatory separate collections of food waste across the country and its treatment through AD to produce biogas and biomethane.
– support the rapid deployment of biogas and biomethane infrastructure
– reduce unnecessary red tape on biogas producers.