News from GGCS

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GGCS 2019 Annual Report

Posted: 1 June, 2020. Written by Jesse Scharf

We are pleased to be publishing our 2019 Annual Report, containing key facts and figures about the green gas market and the operation of our Scheme during the year. 

Introducing the report, Gaynor Hartnell, GGCS Oversight Panel Chair, said:

"The last 12 months have seen climate change move up the political agenda which is most welcome. Clearly one of the biggest challenges is the decarbonisation of our heating system, with a range of technologies putting themselves forward as the solution.

The REA Bioenergy Strategy released in September 2019 estimated a potential annual supply of biomethane of 6,100GWh/year by 2032, showing that our sector can make a significant contribution. This is ten to fifteen times the current production level. How that will complement other heating solutions being advocated, such as hydrogen and heat pumps, is all to be seen but there are certainly interesting times ahead.

One key step will be the Government’s commitment to introduce the mandatory collection of food waste across England (as is already the case in Wales and Scotland) by 2023, which should be nicely timed with the new support mechanism for green gas trailed in the 2020 Spring Budget.

During 2019 GGCS continued to grow in membership, welcoming more producers and traders. We are on track to issue over 2,500GWh of RGGOs for 2019 production while RGGO retirements during the year increased to a similar level. Over 300GWh of that demand for retirement came from transfers under the new agreement put in place with the DENA Biogasregister in Germany. We anticipate the launch of the ERGaR Hub in 2020 will push the number of transfers higher by allowing UK biomethane traders to send and receive RGGOs with a further four registries.

Of course, as we have entered 2020 Covid has proved to a challenge the sector, with fluctuating feedstock levels for biomethane producers and energy trading and supply businesses switching to working from home in the space of a few weeks. No doubt 2020 will prove another busy year for the Scheme!"
 

Further Information:

• Green Gas Certification Scheme Annual Report 2019 (0.41 MB)