Report: UK can heat ‘almost every home’ with grass-based biogas

Green energy company Ecotricity has released a report detailing a plan to heat almost every home in Britain using green gas made from grass.

The report, titled Green Gas Mills: The Opportunity for Britain, shows that by 2035, green gas made from grass could provide all of the gas needs for 97% of Britain’s homes, pump £7.5 billion (€8.7bn) annually into the economy, and create a new industry that supports up to 150,000 jobs.

Additionally, grass-based gas is virtually carbon neutral, the report states, so it could play a significant role in Britain meeting its climate targets and creates new habitats for wildlife on an “unprecedented” scale.

Ecotricity has received a planning permission to build a prototype green gas mill at Sparsholt College in Hampshire, the first of its kind in the UK.

Dale Vince, Ecotricity founder, said it is now possibly to make green gas and put it into the grid the same way as green electricity has been for the last two decades.

“Our first Green Gas Mill has just been given the go-ahead, and we hope to build it soon – though that does depend on whether government energy policy will support this simple, benign, and abundant energy source. 

“We now have a more than viable alternative to fracking, which people have been fighting tooth and nail up and down the country to prevent. It’s not too late, because fracking hasn’t started yet. We need a proper review of where Britain gets its gas from – we can either frack the countryside or we can grow the grass. It’s that simple,” Vince said.

Making green gas from gas will cut carbon emissions, help Britain become energy independent, support food production by improving soils, create wildlife habitats, and allow farmers to financially diversify in the face of lost EU subsidies following Brexit, Ecotricity claims.