RHI commitment must prioritise AD

ADBA PRESS RELEASE

Lord Redesdale, Chairman of the Anaerobic Digestion and Biogas Association, has welcomed the government’s Spending Review commitment to a Renewable Heat Incentive, and called for it to prioritise anaerobic digestion.

The Chancellor’s confirmation that the RHI will be available from April 2011 is welcome. Making a commitment of £860 million for the RHI is a major step forward. The most effective use of government incentives is to promote the production of biomethane through anaerobic digestion.

 

Unlike many other renewable technologies, anaerobic digestion can help meet a wide variety of targets, including renewable energy, climate change and resource preservation. It can also scale up quickly at relatively little cost.

 

ADBA will work with the government to ensure RHI levels are set for AD which will deliver the government’s aims. This will be essential if the UK is to meet its renewable energy and climate change targets for 2020 and 2050.

ADBA has called for a 25% premium on top of a minimum base tariff of 9p/kWh for plants below 1MW in size, and 6p/kWh for input above 1MW, to encourage plants to come online early. This is vital if the coalition’s commitments to being the greenest government ever and ensuring a “huge increase of energy from waste through anaerobic digestion” are to be achieved.

AD has the potential to provide over 30 TWh of energy, which would be enough to heat a city larger than Birmingham. Of this, 24 TWh or 80% comes from the recycling of municipal and commercial and industrial waste. In addition to financial incentives, therefore, the Association has made it clear to government that it must ensure that this valuable resource is not wasted but collected and prioritised for AD.