IGEM welcomes NESO's Future Energy Scenarios 2025
The Institution of Gas Engineers & Managers (IGEM) is pleased to welcome the 2025 edition of Future Energy Scenarios produced by the National Energy System Operator – its first release since transitioning from the Electricity System Operator.
It reports that unabated gas use must decrease at pace to reduce emissions in the short term, and that this can be achieved in a whole systems way through electrification and switching to clean fuels like hydrogen and biomethane.
One key area of energy system development over the last year or so has been the sector getting a greater degree of confidence in the size of the prize offered by biomethane – a renewable gas.
Until now, the UK Government, through the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero (DESNZ), has been working with outdated analysis which seriously underestimates the sustainably sourced volume of biomethane which can be produced annually by 2050.
Future Energy Scenarios 2025 (FES25) now changes all this – there’s one direction for biomethane, and it’s going up. Not only have NESO shown the volume of biomethane we need for the Holistic Transition pathway (64 TWh/yr) is more than double the Government’s current thinking, but they have also undertaken independent analysis that indicates much more than this could be available. This may be around the 120 TWh volume identified by similar analysis recently commissioned by the Green Gas Taskforce – of which IGEM is a founding partner.
NESO also make it clear that we need to be ramping up biomethane entry to the gas grid significantly in the near term - with 36 TWh needed for Holistic Transformation by 2035.
In order to achieve this jump in supply and ensure a consistent pipeline of new production projects, the sector needs to have certainty around a long-term support mechanism that incentivises greater biomethane production beyond the Green Gas Support Scheme that ends in 2028 - something NESO have made very clear in their FES25 report.
Also keenly noted in NESO’s report is the transition for biomass compared to how it’s used today. Rather than it be mainly used for power generation, heating and liquid biofuels as we see currently, it will need to be increasingly used for biomethane, engineered carbon removals and production of sustainable aviation fuels. Producing biomethane and putting it in the gas grid also deals with the green gas removals matter, since carbon can be captured at anaerobic digesters and sent for geological sequestration - making biomethane attractively carbon negative.
As has been inferred, biomethane is going to be incredibly important for the UK meeting its legislated carbon budgets. And NESO’s Holistic Transition, partly thanks to biomethane, is the only pathway that achieves the UK’s 2030 Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) - the decarbonisation promises countries make at annual COP events that are the building blocks of worldwide climate action.
The underpinning role of biomethane requires a substantial gas network to transport this fuel, which can be flexibly drawn off to meet the demand from clean power, industrial customers, heavy transport fleets and for heat in buildings.
France is thrusting ahead with biomethane – installing 130 new plants per year compared to the 130 we have in total in GB. 40 per cent of gas supply in Denmark is biomethane, and they’re on course to hit 100 per cent by 2030 by growing supply, harnessing efficiencies and fuel switching by some end users. Italy have also led strongly in this area, and Spain are gearing up for swift action on this front.
Away from biomethane, the FES25 Holistic Pathway also shows a significant requirement for hydrogen being required, including some for domestic heat. The Holistic Transition pathway shows around 280 TWh of biomethane, hydrogen and natural gas needing to be transported in the gas system in 2050 - with their coexistence throughout the pathway pointing to the need for robust infrastructure planning, including how they will interact.
IGEM will continue to support NESO in its endeavours, including the exploration of evidence gaps needing to be filled to better understand gas market opportunities in a whole energy systems context, and how this plays out at a nationally strategic level and in the detail of NESO’s regional energy systems planning activities.
As FES25 explains, the 2050 horizon needs to be set on operating gaseous fuel networks safely, securely and effectively - something IGEM and its global members always put first as a priority today.
Speaking about the launch of FES25, IGEM CEO Oliver Lancaster said: “It’s been a pleasure for IGEM and our members to support NESO in the period leading up to, and since, its launch in October last year. It’s been very much evident that the organisation that once had only a focus on the electricity system has been working very hard, and engaging a broad range of stakeholders, in the process of integrating the gas system into its remit.
“Biomethane is currently underutilised, but as today’s report shows, the potential supply and demand is significant - the dial needs moving on this very quickly. One of the first things on the list for Government needs to be aligning the UK and EU emissions trading schemes to open up the market for industry and power to decarbonise with biomethane, and indeed hydrogen blends.
“Despite all the positive news for biomethane in NESO’s report, we shouldn’t forget that biomethane is a homegrown renewable fuel that contributes to our energy security and helps towards being less dependent on imports and the whim of geopolitics. Subject to some rapid policy action, we just need to get on with it... and the gas industry stands ready.”