Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Wednesday, 4 December 2019
Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action
Renewable Energy - Wind, Solar and Biogas: Discussion
Mr. Donal Dennehy:
With regard to biomethane, we have the advantage of being late to the table. In Europe there are 17,000 biomethane plants, with two being built in France every week. When we started, the technology had biomethane generating electricity to feed into the grid. That is no longer the process and the technology has matured and is very efficient. This will be led, owned and run by farming communities. Biomethane will be produced and injected into the grid. We in the industry extract it on the far side of the grid like we extract green electricity. It is simple and a well-known technology tried and trusted across Europe. The fact that we are late to the table is better for us as there have been lessons from all the mistakes.