Research call for new gas sources

Different types of gas could play an “increasingly significant role” in the energy mix, the Energy Technologies Institute said as it called for partners on Tuesday.

A new ETI project will look at how bio-synthetic natural gas and hydrogen, as well as natural gas, can be used in future to heat buildings, fuel vehicles, power industrial plant and generate electricity.

These new sources of gas could help cut carbon emissions and flex around intermittent renewable energy generation, the research body said.

The project is part of the ETI’s energy storage and distribution programme and will look at the infrastructure and operating regime needed to support new types of gas.

Susie Kistruck, project manager at the ETI, said: “Our modelling has shown that there is a need for storing energy effectively as part of the UK’s future energy mix to help to allow affordable renewable sources to expand and reduce theUK’s carbon emissions.

“Our research has indicated that a broad range of gases could be flexible enough to be used for multiple purposes and this project aims to build a detailed understanding of the issues that will need to be addressed to make this a reality.”

The ETI is also seeking partners to look at the geographic constraints around building new power plants.

Mike Middleton, the ETI strategy manager responsible for the project, said: “Siting constraints for new build power generation plants will become increasingly important as the UK’s energy infrastructure ages and more and more power plants are retired.

“The potential constraints of the availability of suitable and potential sites for new generation plants need to be understood fully. This project will increase this understanding, which we hope will help informed deployment decisions to be taken from a robust evidence base.”