Water UK, the body that represents all UK water and wastewater service suppliers at national and European level, has published its response to Defra’s consultation on developing an Anaerobic Digestion (AD) Framework.
The water companies have also urged the Government to reexamine the ROC bandings associated with AD and enable the water sector to make a contribution to national renewable energy targets. However, Government plans for building markets for biomethane for transport fuels to encourage the uptake of biomethane from AD as a transport fuel would be difficult to achieve unless it had ‘end of waste’ status.
The water companies have identified a number of priority work areas, including:
· Smarter Regulation – the regulations that impact the co-digestion of sludge with various wastes should be reviewed and simplified to help maximise the benefit of AD and to ensure that costs are proportionate to the environmental protection. This should include clarifying the status of biogas, simplifying the regulation of waste at sewage treatment works, gaining appropriate legislation to allow the recycling of co-digestates to agricultural land and resolving the regulatory issues of treating waste when mixed with sewage sludge.
· Building Investor Confidence - Different interpretations of identical technologies, specifically AD of sewage sludge and AD of other matter, is a barrier to development of further AD capacity.
· Building safe and secure markets for digestate – The water industry is heavily reliant on the agricultural landbank as a safe and sustainable outlet for recycling treated sewage sludge (biosolids) Landbank security should be protected and its continued availability ensured to allow the recycling of co-digestates and the recycling of sludge to land.
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