The anaerobic digestion industry has criticised the Department of Energy and Climate Change's (DECC) Renewable Energy Roadmap Update for its lack of detail on how the UK will deliver an increase in energy from waste.
According to Charlotte Morton, chief executive of the Anaerobic Digestion and Biogas Association, DECC’s updated roadmap details some good progress on renewable energy, reflected in steady growth in anaerobic digestion in 2012, and lays out some helpful actions for the sector as a whole. “However, delivering the coalition’s commitment to a huge increase in energy from waste though anaerobic digestion requires a much more focussed effort – and the government’s roadmap doesn’t even have a specific section on AD, or mention the potential for biomethane as a transport fuel”
Morton added that DECC’s roadmap alone will not bring the coordination across government needed to realise these benefits. “Waste policy needs to maximise the organic material available for AD, bioenergy policy needs to support good practice and compare technologies by common criteria, and biomethane in transport needs a more attractive framework of support”.
Responding to the update, the Anaerobic Digestion and Biogas Association has produced its own ‘roadmap for anaerobic digestion’ which lays out barriers which remain to the technology, and how these can be overcome.
There are now 92 AD plants outside the water sector in the UK, compared to 69 in late 2011. An independent report by thinktank CentreForum published in July 2012 showed that AD already generates four times more energy than solar PV, and has the capacity for 800% growth by 2020 with the right support.
Download a copy of the ‘roadmap for anaerobic digestion'.