G AS P IP E L INE S
AUSTRALIA’S PATHWAY TO
100 PER CENT RENEWABLE GAS By Jordan McCollum, National Policy Manager, Australian Pipelines and Gas Association (APGA)
Delivering renewable gases through new or repurposed gas infrastructure has attracted increasing interest across Australia, due to its lower cost pathway to gas use decarbonisation.
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n the report Gas Vision 2050: Delivering the pathway to net-zero for Australia – 2022 Outlook, the Australian Pipelines and Gas Association (APGA) and Energy Networks Australia (ENA) draw on work produced by DNVGL to consider the steps required to enable the delivery of renewable gases to domestic gas customers. Gas networks and pipelines are preparing to deliver renewable and decarbonised gases. The report by DNV-GL lays out actions that industry and governments need to take to achieve domestic gas decarbonisation. While all pathways to net-zero gas require the introduction of hydrogen or a similarly abundant renewable gas, biomethane offers the most technically simple and cost effective early emission reduction opportunity. Biomethane also has the advantage that it is designed to comply with today’s natural gas standards. This means it is able to be used in the natural gas infrastructure and appliances of today. On the other hand, current appliance testing regimes in Australia only consider up to around ten per cent hydrogen,
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and while some infrastructure is hydrogen ready, other infrastructure may require upgrades to enable 100 per cent hydrogen uptake in the future. Instigating a ten per cent hydrogen blend in today’s gas networks is still an important first step to developing 100 per cent renewable gas networks. This is because delivering hydrogen in a ten per cent blend can help solve the ‘chicken and egg’ problem of developing early hydrogen supply capability by providing early producers a large, receptive market. This in turn can contribute to hydrogen production cost reductions and investor certainty. Importantly, customer choice is at the centre of all gas use decarbonisation pathways, protecting the rights of energy customers to choose whether gaseous or electrical energy sources are best suited to their individual needs. Orderly transition towards net-zero gas in Australia requires three key steps to occur. DVN-GL has considered the actions required for each step using the five tenets of customer
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