Decarbonising the Gas Grid – Regulation vs Investment?
- 18 July 2024
- Posted by: David Bamford
- Category: energy excellence
This graphic is a detailed summary of a recently concluded EMPIR project “Decarbonising the Gas Grid”, co-funded by the EU’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme and the EMPIR Participating States. This is a verbatim description of the intent:
Given the sources of funding, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to assume that the EU Commission will be guided by this work and its recommendations when it comes to defining and agreeing its (slowly emergent) emissions legislation, which aims to reduce carbon emissions from its domestic industries.
The question I’m addressing here is what would this mean for individual companies? Below is a slightly modified version of the ‘gas grids’ graphic which appears above:
I predict two outcomes:
- Every company that sits at a key point in this grid – put simply, every company that sits at one of the arrowheads – will need to provide verified measurements (metrology) on the historic and current flow rates, composition, physical properties and fugitive emissions of the gas they are inputting to the grid.
- Every company that utilises this gas in some way – to generate power, as feedstock for the chemical industry, to manufacture fertiliser etc etc – will need to be able to look back along its supply chain (in addition to doing its own verified metrology) and account for the carbon emissions therein. Companies supplying gas to the grid – especially via pipeline or LNG – will also need to ‘carbon account’ along their supply chain.
Let me be clear, this is my guess at the consequences of as yet fully developed EU regulatory plans.
However, as we reviewed in our recent blog, Unveiling Britain’s Climate Paradox in the case of the U.K politically ambitious plans might have unintended consequences such as EU industries offshoring to countries with less demanding regulatory environments – or more investment in industries and technologies – and doing this despite the EU introducing a Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism – CBAM, see Living with CBAM!
A sub-text here is whether the new U.K. government, seemingly keen to normalise relationships with the EU, adopts similar regulations. Or will they adopt an investment strategy such as the Inflation Reduction Act in the USA?
Regulation vs Investment?
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