| Energy
Green gas industry responds to NAO renewable
heat report
Green gas is home-grown and reduces need for expensive natural-gas imports. The Industry echoes NAO call for
government to address policy gap by providing long-term support for renewable heat and introducing effective carbon
price. In addition, the Report says successor policy to RHI is to be announced this year.
esponding to a
new report from
the National Audit
Office (NAO) on
the cost-
effectiveness of
the Renewable Heat Incentive
(RHI), Charlotte Morton, Chief
Executive of the Anaerobic
Digestion & Bioresources
Association, said:
“As one of the technologies
supported by the RHI, biomethane
(or green gas) is currently heating
over 300,000 homes and
displacing almost 800,000 tonnes
of CO2, the equivalent to taking
almost a million cars off our roads.
As a home-grown, renewable
source of heat, it is helping to
decarbonise the UK’s gas grid and
improving energy security through
reducing the need for expensive
natural-gas imports from unstable
parts of the world.
R
“The government faces a huge
challenge in cutting harmful
carbon emissions
“With support for the RHI due to
end in 2021, we’re calling on the
government to put in place long-
term support for renewable heat to
help give certainty to the green
gas industry. The government
should also set an effective carbon
price that would better
demonstrate green gas’s excellent
value for money in reducing
emissions and producing home-
grown renewable heat.”
Meg Hillier MP, Chair of the
Committee of Public Accounts,
said on the publication of the
NAO’s RHI report:
“The government faces a huge
challenge in cutting harmful
carbon emissions. The NAO report
shows how the government has
massively cut back its ambitions
for this scheme, and that as a
result it will have to work even
harder elsewhere.”
“But right now the government
doesn’t know how it is going to cut
carbon from heating systems in
millions of homes and businesses
around the country. There is a
limited amount of time to work
with, so it needs to start making
real progress now.”
ADBA understands that some of
the recommendations made in the
report have already been
incorporated into the RHI reforms
that are currently going through
Parliament, which, if passed, will
give a vital boost to green gas
production in the UK.
The report states that a decision
on the successor policy to the RHI
is due to be announced this year.
32 | Farming Monthly | March 2018
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