What makes our gas carbon neutral?

Radiator Green Gas

10% of the gas that we supply is renewable biogas generated in Britain. The rest is offset by investing in projects that improve access to green energy around the world.

A saucepan over a stove using green gas
Green gas

What is biogas and how is it generated?

Kettle being heated with green gas

Biogas – also known as biomethane – is produced when organic matter such as leftover food and agricultural waste is processed in an anaerobic digester (AD). AD tanks let the waste break down in an environment that’s free from oxygen. This allows methane gas to be produced, which is then extracted from the AD and injected into the gas grid.

Once it’s in the grid, biogas can be used in the same way as natural gas: it’s burnt to heat our homes and cook our food.

We supply 10% biogas because this figure represents the maximum percentage of the UK’s gas demand that can be met from sustainably produced, UK generated biogas.

How do we offset our gas?

We work with offsetting organisation ClimateCare to balance out the emissions from the gas you use at home.

All of our offset projects focus on biogas generation. We chose them because they follow a number of the UN Sustainable Development Goals, from Climate Action and Affordable Clean Energy to Health & Wellbeing and Gender Equality.

Read more about our carbon offset projects

In India, more than 1,000 women and children die every day from exposure to smoke produced by household cooking with solid fuel. This project works with rural districts to install biogas digesters that turn cattle dung into green gas for cooking.

Benefits include reducing deforestation from felling trees for fuel, protecting biodiversity and improving health within the home. The digestate produced at the end of the biogas generation process can also be used as crop fertilizer.

Xuyong Biogas helps communities in one of China’s poorest provinces by installing household biogas digesters and providing training on maintaining them. This allows farmers to use animal waste to generate clean fuel, reducing the need for households to spend money on polluting coal.

This project supports farmers to build and maintain a household biogas digester, giving them the opportunity to take control of their own energy supply. Families reduce expenditure on fuel by 40%, whilst improving sanitation for them and their livestock. It also enables long-term access to a source of renewable, clean fuel for cooking and heating.

This project works with one of Turkey’s largest dairy companies, which can process nearly 500 million litres of milk annually. Waste from the plant and surrounding farms is used to create biogas, which is then burned to create renewable electricity. This grid-scale generator is expected to generate over 14.9GWh annually. That’s equivalent to the power demand of 4,500 typical UK homes.

As well as producing clean power and helping to make Turkey’s power grid greener, benefits include the production of quality fertilizer and providing new green jobs.