ADBA proposes creation of carbon-credit trading platform

The proposal is to establish a company that will seek to list and trade a biomethane carbon-credit product, the Biomethane Credit (BMC).

While ADBA will not have any direct interest in the new company, it believes that this will be of benefit, particularly to biomethane producers, by offering them an additional revenue stream to help support the development of the industry’s gas-to-grid capability. It would also deliver the increase in energy from waste through anaerobic digestion that the government committed to in its Coalition Agreement.

The government is due to announce the Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) later this month. Part of the RHI is to provide incentives to build AD plants that can produce biomethane for grid injection.

To date, only three such plants have been built, with the benefit of substantial grants.

ADBA said in a statement that the proposed scheme has the potential to serve as an effective way for the government to ‘de-socialise’ the biomethane element of the cost of the RHI. It would do this by creating a tradable product that will have an external value to grid-injecting biomethane producers. This, in turn, would eventually transfer the cost of providing subsidy for the renewable industry from the consumer to the private sector.