Calor announce breakthrough opportunity for Great Britain to make cost-effective inroads into renewable targets
Britain has been identified as one of five potential European countries for distribution of a new supply of biopropane. If deployed in Great Britain biopropane could make a major contribution to Britain’s 2020 Renewable Energy targets in both transport and heating applications.
SHV Energy, the parent company of Calor Gas, the UK’s largest LPG supplier yesterday announced a deal to supply the green gas biopropane to its European customers in a commercial deal with Finnish bio-diesel producer NESTÉ Oil. The biopropane will be generated from a waste product of Nesté’s HVO biodiesel refining process at its Rotterdam plant. The agreement to supply some 160,000 tons of biopropane over a four-year period is the first of its kind anywhere in the world delivering over 2.2TW of renewable energy.
Nesté Oil’s Rotterdam refinery’s main product is a top-quality renewable diesel which is produced from various bio-based raw materials and wastes. In early September Nesté Oil announced a €60 million investment to produce and store biopropane at their Rotterdam facility. Nesté Oil expects the new unit to be producing biopropane at the end of 2016.
Biopropane is chemically indistinct from propane and so can be used in any ratio with fossil fuel propane, right up to 100%. This will make it the first “drop-in” renewable transport and heating fuel available in the British market.
Looking to Britain’s rural energy market, biopropane could have a major impact as it will provide existing liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) consumers with a means of converting to green energy without changing their existing boiler or other LPG equipment. The initial amount of biopropane available each year could heat 30,000 homes and significant further growth is expected as biopropane supply volumes and diversity of sources increase in the coming years.
The scale of deployment in Britain and applications chosen for this green gas will very much depend on the regulatory frameworks in place for heating and transport. Calor will be exploring these frameworks along with commercial opportunities for distribution in both the heating and transport sectors.
“We are very excited about this development as it shows that LPG, via biopropane, has a long term future in the British energy market and has a major part to play in helping Britain achieve its renewable energy targets”, says Stephen Rennie, Managing Director, Calor Gas Limited.
“SHV Energy is an ideal partner to market and distribute our biopropane. This agreement guarantees that the product will find customers who will benefit from and value its unique environmental properties”,says Ms Kaisa Hietala, SVP Renewable Products at Neste Oil.
