Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask Her Majesty's Government whether the Department of Transport and DEFRA are taking any joint steps to support UK farming communities to harness methane emissions to be used as renewable biomethane fuel for buses, trains and trams along with digestates capable of enriching soils and sequestering carbon; and if so, what are any such steps.

The Renewable Transport Fuel Obligation scheme was amended in 2015, to reward biomethane used in transport and non-road mobile machinery, on the basis of its energy content rather than volume. As a consequence, biomethane is eligible to receive 1.9 Renewable Transport Fuel Certificates (RTFCs) per kilogram, an increase on 1 RTFCs per kilogram, and double that number when produced from wastes such as manure.

The Green Gas Support Scheme (GGSS) will open to applicants in Autumn 2021 for four years. The GGSS will provide tariff support for biomethane injection into the gas grid, and will encourage the use of waste feedstocks, including agricultural wastes, to produce the biomethane. The scheme will include a payment formula, which allows biomethane producers to split payments between the GGSS and the Department for Transport’s (DfT’s) Renewable Transport Fuel Obligation (RTFO), enabling different consignments of biomethane to receive payments from either the GGSS or the RTFO within the same quarter. To encourage good use of digestate produced during biomethane production, scheme participants will be required to dispose of the digestate using low emission techniques when spreading on land.