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igem news

POLICY AND RESEARCH

SHAPING FUTURE GAS POLICY

IGEM’s Policy Officer Sayda Lees-Manning talks us through some technologies to be applied across power,
big changes for the gas world and how IGEM is positioning itself gas, heat and transport.
at the heart of decision-making for the industry’s future The challenge for policymakers and
regulators is that potential solutions
The current energy policy landscape now accounting for more than a for low-carbon heating are varied.
Following the UK government’s third of the UK’s carbon emissions, They must build flexibility into their
legal commitment to meet net zero decarbonising heat across domestic, policies to allow for variation, system
carbon emissions by 2050, the sector commercial and industrial uses is integration and development of
now eagerly awaits a firm steer from one of the toughest challenges facing future innovation, while providing a
government on how it plans to achieve it. climate policymakers today. stable enough regulatory and policy
For some, there is an expectation that The challenge is often presented framework to establish a sustainable
November 2020’s UN Climate Change as a choice between large scale market and encourage investment.
Summit (COP26) in Glasgow, will see electrification and the utilisation of It is likely that the government will
the UK not only continue to act as a low-carbon gases, each with their own hedge its bets and develop a policy
leader in this space, but also present a merits and challenges. roadmap that supports both gas and
detailed roadmap on how it will achieve However, some argue that large electricity as part of the low carbon
its 2050 target. scale electrification of the heating energy mix moving forward, and the
However, with the postponement of sector is not the most cost effective indications from government thus far
the Energy White Paper (previously decarbonisation option, and is limited seems to support this notion.
planned for 2019) and the recent by the capacity to generate and store Despite policy delays and uncertainty,
announcement that the government’s sufficient quantities of electricity to we have seen some progress. The
net zero strategy will not emerge until accommodate peak demand. government is currently investing up to
the end of the year, there is widespread More recently, we have seen a move £108 million in a range of programmes
concern that the actions required for towards the call for an integrated, exploring and developing the potential
urgent change are not being taken. balanced energy mix and the application of low-carbon hydrogen. Last year
With the UK already off course to of system coupling solutions and also saw the announcement of a
meet its fourth and fifth carbon budgets, hybrid appliances. We have also seen £100 million Low Carbon Hydrogen
there is a lot of ground to make up and a growing emphasis on using a whole Production Fund and £26 million of
the challenge for government – and system approach to meeting the energy funding awarded to carbon capture
industry – is ever increasing. transition challenge, with government utilisation and storage (CCUS) projects
With emissions from heating supporting a portfolio of low-carbon across the UK.

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