Renewable gas presents an opportunity to support Australia’s climate ambitions, by deploying more renewable energy options for the 6.5 million Australian homes and businesses that currently use gas, reducing emissions without radical disruption.

By utilising our existing pipeline infrastructure and appliances to deliver a low-emissions alternative to natural gas, and supporting both renewable electricity and renewable gas, we can avoid the unnecessary build out of new and costly infrastructure.

Scan the shoreline in Sydney’s east, and you might get a glimpse of a green dome. It’s not a crystal ball but it is part of the future of gas. Australia’s first biomethane injection plant which converts wastewater into biomethane that is then injected into Jemena’s gas network.

Importantly, this biomethane from Malabar is now officially accredited by GreenPower as a low-emission renewable gas.

The biomethane plant is on track to scale up biomethane production to 200 terajoules per year. Small beginnings, but a bright future, given in NSW alone there is up to 34 petajoules of biomethane potential in proximity to Jemena’s gas network. This is enough to meet the network’s residential demand or 65 per cent of our industrial gas users who use just over half of the gas we deliver.

And here is where the biggest impact can be made, and where governments can assist the most.

These industrial gas users, including many manufacturers critical to the national economy, must be able to not only access renewable gas, but count its use towards their emissions reduction targets to achieve mandated requirements under the Safeguard Mechanism.

This requires a national certification scheme, like the GreenPower Scheme, where producers can create and sell certified renewable gas using our existing gas network infrastructure, and where renewable gas users can then claim their emissions reductions under the National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting legislation.

It is not a significant ask or task, given the policy framework already exists. But it would support real emission reduction options for Australia’s gas users, and a lowest cost energy transition.

Modelling released in April by ACIL Allen shows the most economically efficient pathway to net zero emissions for today’s gas users involves a mix of renewable gas and renewable electricity, boosting Australia’s economy by $30 billion through the clean energy transition. And that a Renewable Gas Target represents a lower cost net zero pathway compared to a more electrification-focussed approach.

This balancing act of reducing emissions at lowest cost is a prominent theme in the recent 2023 report released by Boston Consulting Group, which found that the most economic energy transition was to continue to progress the decarbonisation of our electricity and liquid fuels while low carbon gases could provide a cost-effective option for gas customers to decarbonise.

Renewable gas is part of the big picture

With Australia contemplating our 2035 targets there is no time to waste.

The European Union is arguably a decade or more ahead of Australia in its approach with member nations ramping up their use of both renewable gas and renewable electricity.

There are now more than 10,000 biogas facilities across Germany alone, powering 9.5 million homes, while around 40 per cent of Denmark’s network gas is biomethane, extracted from animal waste. It may not be pretty, but it is certainly effective.

Without policies that enable growth of renewable gas in Australia, we risk falling even further behind our global peers.

It’s when we step back and look at the big picture of what is working around the world, we can see the big opportunities.

Getting more renewable energy options on the table can help to reduce emissions more efficiently and more affordably, minimising disruption to industry and maximising potential economic gain.

That is a future worth investing in.

David Gillespie is managing director Jemena. To find out more, please visit Jemena.