Business Green , 01 June 2010
James Murray

Ecotricity delivers UK's first "green gas"

Green energy supplier Ecotricity has revealed it has started to deliver "green gas" made from composted organic waste to British customers, making it the first UK energy firm to successfully provide gas generated using anaerobic digestion technologies.

The company, which announced its green gas tariff late last year, is seeking to replicate the model it uses to provide customers with electricity generated from wind turbines in the gas market, offering a mixture of green and conventional "brown" gas to customers and using revenue raised through the tariff to fund the development of new green gas capacity.

The service was launched two months ago and Ecotricity said it has been " staggered by the response" with 2,500 customers signing up to date.

The company has now begun to add green gas to its fuel mix after signing a deal with an anaerobic digestion plant in the Netherlands that delivers gas made from waste sugar beet byproducts into the grid.

A spokesman for Ecotricity explained that it had bought gas from Holland as no green gas plants are currently connected to the grid in the UK. "Holland's gas grid is directly connected to the UK and over half of the UK's gas is imported," he said. "As with our wind power model the customer uses gas from the normal grid, but we have a certificate showing that we have delivered green gas into the grid."

Only a small proportion of the gas Ecotricity delivers to domestic and business customers comes from anaerobic digestion plants, but it is in the process of negotiating more supply deals and aims to ensure that it supplies up to 10 per cent biogas in its mix by the end of the year.
It then aims to increase the proportion of green gas supplied each year by investing money from customers' bills in the first wave of British anaerobic digestion plants to deliver gas direct to the grid.

Source: Ecotricity delivers UK's first "green gas"

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