Feeling the heat

The gas versus electric debate around decarbonising heat appears to be picking up fresh momentum, with proponents on both sides using last week’s Utility Week Congress to make their voices heard. Jane Gray examines the opposing arguments.

With big names and big issues on the agenda, Utility Week Congress was always set to throw out some critical insight and controversy – and it didn’t disappoint.

Across the two days, speaker keynotes and panel debates triggered a flurry of news stories and even more gossip in the conference networking breaks on issues from renewables payments to water efficiency and from Dermot Nolan’s regrets to the threat of a no-deal Brexit for Ireland’s Single Electricity Market.

Unsurprisingly though it was climate change and the implications of the UK’s net zero emissions commitment for utility strategies that dominated presentations and discussion on and off the stage. And within this it was the challenge of decarbonising heat that hopped into the hot seat.

We are all now well aware that, within the enormous headline challenge of tackling climate change, decarbonisation of heat is a pressing concern. What was notable at Utility Week Congress was that the electrification lobby was out in force to advocate heat pumps over green gas as the primary route to slashing heat-related carbon emissions.

On a big hitting panel debate, including representations from five utility chief executives, support for electrifying heat was strong. And later the same day, Clare Duffy, head of network development at vertically integrated Irish utility ESB, added her backing to the electrification pathway.

Most strident on the issue was Octopus Energy chief executive Greg Jackson who frankly admitted that he’d rather stop selling gas altogether and “rampage towards greener electricity for heating”.

Jackson struck a lively combative stance with advocates of green gas, calling on a competition to see whether electricity of gas could deliver emissions benefits quickest. He was backed by Eon chief executive Michael Lewis – well known as a believer in heat pumps. While expressing a hope that hydrogen networks will play an important role in providing large scale energy storage and optimisation of renewable electricity output, Lewis repeated his view that “full electrification” is the best solution to driving carbon out of the equation for heating homes.

Paul Stapleton, managing director of Northern Ireland Energy Networks, added a more cautious but none the less positive outlook for the role of heat pumps in decarbonising heat in NI. In an environment where only around 30 per cent of customers are currently connected to the gas grid and oil-based heating is prevalent, he said there is a significant opportunity to connect more customer in close proximity to the existing gas network. But he also indicated that he did not believe a bigger extension of the gas grid – even a significantly greened one – would be the logical next step. Instead, heat pumps should play a major role in allowing the NI population to “leapfrog” gas technology and adopt low carbon heating options.

A defence for green gas and hydrogen options for heat did not come until the second day of Congress when Cadent’s Kate Jones warned that electrification would place an impossible burden on the power distribution grid.

She added her view that “You’d have to do something like building a nuclear power station every 25 miles around the coast of Britain in order to be able to supply the demand [through electrification]…I just can’t see it.”

But even with her pro-green gas solutions stance, Jones was clearly alert to the strength of support for electrification and acknowledged the big question marks that lie over the future of major gas infrastructure investment schemes such as the iron mains replacement programme. She urged the Treasury to make an informed decision one way or another about whether to commit further billions of public pounds to completing this programme – which still has ten years and thousands of miles to run, if it isn’t sure what it wants from the gas network in the future.

This gas versus electric debate is no new thing. But with an increased urgency behind the need to drive down heat-related carbon emissions, there is a new level of dogmatism emerging in both camps. And from the electrification lobby at least, a new level of competitive energy.