Gas network operators come together for an agri-led biomethane gas project

TWO Stormont Ministers have come together with Northern Ireland’s five gas network operators (Evolve, firmus energy, GNI (UK), Mutual Energy and Phoenix Energy), to support the production of biomethane using organic and agricultural waste streams.

Minister for Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs, Andrew Muir, and Economy Minister, Conor Murphy, met with the gas network operators at Stormont to launch a Request for Information to support the production of biomethane utilising organic and agricultural waste streams.

Biomethane is already widely used as a like-for-like carbon-neutral alternative to natural gas across Europe, and is produced from sustainable feedstock such as underutilised silage, slurry and food waste.

It can be injected into Northern Ireland’s modern gas network infrastructure, supporting local emission reduction targets by displacing fossil fuels.

Last year, an anaerobic digestion (AD) plant at the Granville Ecopark near Dungannon became the first site on the island of Ireland to directly inject biomethane into the Evolve network, and the sector is now preparing to upscale the volumes of biomethane being injected into the local gas network.

This followed a 2022 study by

Queen’s University Belfast which demonstrated that in Northern Ireland there is sufficient feedstock available to replace large volumes of the existing gas network demand.

Gas network operators have called on potential biomethane producers and current biogas producers who may be considering upgrading and repurposing their plants to produce and inject biomethane, to respond to this request for information.

Evolve, formerly SGN Natural Gas, is the gas distribution network operator for the west of Northern Ireland, covering eight key towns: Enniskillen, Derrylin, Magherafelt, Cookstown, Dungannon, Coalisland, Omagh, and Strabane.