The key to turning on – Biogas
The federal government’s recently released technology road map charts a course towards a clean energy future and describes gas as a bridge for the transition and beyond. The road map states that renewable energy now and into the future is and will continue to be the cheapest form of energy. Today however, renewables still require significant fossil fuel infrastructure to provide stable baseload power.
The exception to this is renewable gas from biogas, which provides both piers of the bridge to enable the transition to renewable energy. Renewable gas can be stored for immediate dispatch as baseload power and it is a high quality form of renewable energy.
Whichever way the Australian energy system evolves over the coming decades, renewable gas is on a growth trajectory, but the extent of that growth is completely dependent on government policy.
A legislated minimum 5% of renewable gas required in the national gas grid at natural gas specification and heating value, would completely change the landscape.
This sort of legislation is essential for biogas projects to become viable and would be the key factor in making biogas a major Australian renewable energy source by providing a guaranteed market.
Right now there are a number of biogas projects throughout the country situated adjacent to the national gas grid which continue to flare biogas that could be going into a renewable gas supply.
Renewable gas that is a key to our circular economy.
Anaerobic digestion plants divert waste from landfill for the generation of biogas to be upgraded to renewable gas. This reduces carbon dioxide emissions, captures renewable gas for supply to the gas grid and disposes the organic residue as a soil conditioner, the whole process becomes economically viable and completes the circular economy like no other energy source.
Biogas projects all over the country could be kickstarted into viability through a government scheme that would cost nothing to implement but could create hundreds of jobs overnight.
Biogas continues to evolve but at what pace is up to the government and its eagerness to progress the renewable energy landscape.
