John Butterworth: “The wind did not blow enough or not blow at all for 262 days in 2022. Without gas there would be blackouts.»
The man who runs Britain's gas network has said the country will need fossil fuels to prevent blackouts for decades to come, despite government calls to start shutting off the pipes.
John Butterworth, chief executive of National Gas, said growing dependence on intermittent energy sources such as wind and solar means Britain will increasingly rely on gas to make up the shortfall when renewables fail to produce electricity.
Mr Butterworth said: “In 2022 there was little or no wind blowing for 262 days. And in those 262 days we would have had rolling or blackouts across the UK if it weren't for gas.»
He believes Britain will still need gas to keep the lights on until now. expected by 2040.
“I actually think we will pump more gas, but we will pump gas to power plants to produce electricity, not to homes.”
His sentence comes despite calls for the government to begin closing the gas network as part of the transition to net zero.
The National Infrastructure Commission (NIC), chaired by Sir John Armitt, last week called for decommissioning the UK's domestic gas network with a £70bn push to encourage people to switch to heat pumps and help the country reach net zero.
The cost of decommissioning will likely be added to consumers' bills, but NIC says the policy will help halve domestic energy costs by 2050.
The Government plans to replace 25 million domestic gas boilers in the UK with heat pumps to end our dependence on both gas and global gas prices. It is because of this dependence that electricity bills have doubled since 2021.
Heat pumps, however, require electricity, and in a country that has committed to generating most of its energy from wind farms, there will be plenty days with light winds when gas is still needed.
Mr Butterworth envisions a time when millions of green heat pumps will be running but using non-green energy produced by gas-fired power stations.
He said: “It's actually much less efficient than burning gas in the house. Domestic gas boilers are around 90% efficient, but the best power plant is around 50%.
Mr Butterworth, whose career began as an apprentice fitter for British Gas, believes getting rid of gas Great Britain's dependence will be more difficult than many people think.
Gas currently provides 38% of the country's energy, and we use 76 billion cubic meters of it per year. This corresponds to 1,100 cubic meters per person — or the volume of one and a half airliners.
Only a third is used to heat homes. The other third goes to power plants, where it produces 40% of our electricity. The rest produces heat and electricity for industry. Collectively, the gas generates around 150 million tonnes of CO2 in the UK per year.
The government has made cutting gas consumption one of the pillars of achieving net zero, but Mr Butterworth said he did not expect less gas to be sold in the UK. 2040, despite official policy.
He said: “We as a country are investing in intermittent renewable energy, which is wind. So when the wind doesn't blow, the gas transmission system has to replace it, so I don't see that.
“Gas won't be used as often, but on the days it is used, exactly the same amount of gas will flow through the pipes.”
If he's right, gas will be just as needed in 2040. like now. But by then it will no longer power our boilers, because they will be out of order. Last year, heat pumps were installed in 55,000 homes, but the government wants to increase this number to 600,000 a year.
By 2050, he suggests, the situation may change. By now there should be commercial supply of hydrogen to power backup power stations, but it all depends on how the government gets those hydrogen plants online.
National Gas came into existence in February this year after the sale of National Grid. 60% shares of Gas Transmission & The measurement business is owned by Macquarie Asset Management and British Columbia Investment Management Corporation.
National Gas now operates the UK's gas network, with high-pressure pipes taking gas and moving it across the country to where it is needed.
Gas reaches UK shores via pipelines from the North Sea and Norway or on ships as liquefied natural gas from the US, Qatar and other countries.
Mr Butterworth is not worried about the future of National Gas in the UK and net zero UK. expects the company to benefit from the energy transition.
One of its key tasks will be to build two new national gas networks to complement the high-pressure transmission system that primarily transports natural gas. One will transport hydrogen and the other will carry waste CO2.
The hydrogen will be supplied to energy-intensive heavy industries such as power plants, cement plants and chemical plants to minimize their emissions. The CO2 will be sent north to Scotland, where it will be injected into rocks deep under the seabed for final disposal.
Mr Butterworth said: “For us the national infrastructure plan is very positive. It even has a map of future pipeline systems for CO2 and hydrogen. This supports our plans for ProjectUnion, the first 100% hydrogen pipeline along the east coast.
“They also support our carbon capture project, which will deliver emissions from the Grangemouth refinery in Scotland to the St Fergus terminal, from where Shell will then pump them into a depleted North Sea warehouse.»
However, Mr Butterworth said calls for the decommissioning of the gas network were «concerning» because heat pumps were not suitable for all homes.
He said: “There are 11 million homes that we know from various studies cannot be electrified or equipped with heat pumps. These are city apartments, high-rise buildings, apartments in interwar London and so on. There is no explanation as to what they should do.
“If you have great insulation, the heat pump works great as long as it doesn't freeze. If you look at Scandinavia, 60-70% of homes have heat pumps. But everyone has a wood-burning fireplace — and they all light it in winter to keep them warm from the cold. But we don't have that.
“I've been running an emergency gas service for ten years and I'm worried about a bad winter. If hundreds of thousands of people have heat pumps and then have a bad winter, people will freeze. I'm genuinely concerned.»
Mr Butterworth is also concerned about the future of his former UK gasfitting colleagues. He fears the decommissioning of the intranet would destroy the entire profession.
“There are 135,000 gas service engineers in the UK, plus 60,000 other professionals working in the sector. Gas engineers are people who go into people's houses and install central heating or break it down.»
Mr Butterworth believes net zero will benefit someone, but is concerned that a lot of people will be left behind.
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He said, “I'm just worried about all these things. Not helping employment, not helping families, not helping industry.
“Everyone should be able to participate in net zero, but if you're talking about £15,000 to build a heat pump and insulate your home — that's out of reach for many people. What will happen to them?
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