Green gas in the pipeline for Yorkshire

ADBA MEMBER PRESS RELEASE

Green gas made from home-grown maize is set to fuel thousands of homes and businesses across Yorkshire with the region’s very first biogas to grid project in Doncaster.

Biomass operators Future Biogas and gas network company National Grid have successfully commissioned the environmentally-friendly project to pump biomethane, generated by locally-grown farming break-crops, including maize, grass and other biomass, into the gas network at Bawtry Road, Hatfield Woodhouse, Doncaster.

Future Biogas Managing Director Philipp Lukas and National Grid’s Director of Network Strategy Jeremy Bending will officially unveiled the £8 million, state-of-the-art plant at a ceremony on Tuesday 3 December.

Future Biogas Managing Director Philipp Lukas said:

We are delighted to have delivered the first commercial biomethane plant with National Grid and look forward to building upon this successful partnership. We already have two further plants in construction and are very pleased to be working with the National Grid team again.

Jeremy Bending, National Grid’s Director of Network Strategy, said:

This is National Grid’s first commercial bio-gas connection and we are very proud of this achievement. It is the culmination of months of hard work between National Grid, Future Biogas and all our suppliers.

 

Biogas will play an important part in providing safe, sustainable gas supplies for our homes and businesses for decades to come and help to reduce the country’s greenhouse gas emissions. We are committed to supporting bio-gas and this is the first step in our goal to connect 80 such projects across the country over the next eight years.

The state-of-the-art facility is the first biomethane plant to be built and operated by Future Biogas. It processes 35,000 tonnes of feedstock, sourced from local farmers, every year. It is also the first plant producing gas under the Biomethane Certification Scheme (BMCS) run by Green Gas Trading (GGT), see our other news story here.

The farm break-crops are fermented in an anaerobic digester to produce bio-gas, which is then processed by high-tech National Grid equipment, before being injected into the gas network. The plant can produce up to 12,000 cubic metres of gas per day – enough to heat 2,500 homes during peak demand in winter and some 40,000 homes during lower demand in the summer.

As a by-product, the process also produces a valuable organic fertiliser that will be used by the local farming community.