UK Has Enough Grass to Power Every Home, Claims Green Energy Magnate

Dominique Adams

05 August 2019, 03.16pm

Grass is a renewable source of energy that eliminates the need for industrial farming waste.

There is enough grass in Britain to power all UK households, claims the founder of green energy business Ecotricity.

Dale Vince’s company plans to build a grass-powered energy plant in Hampshire by the end of the year. It is estimated the new plant will cost £15 million and it is the first major investment by a UK company into this form of green technology.

Vince said: “It’s relatively new. We can basically make gas and put it into the gas grid in the same way that we can with electricity from renewables. But instead of using waste food or energy crops which have their own environment issues we have come up with a new way which is to use grass.”

Initially proposed in 2015, the project is part of the company’s push for so-called “vegan energy”, which does not use animal waste and by-products such as livestock, slaughterhouse waste, fish parts and animal slurry. Vince has said that this type of energy is a “fairly big problem” for the UK’s energy industry.

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“Most green gas projects in Britain are based on energy crops or food waste, and food waste will include animal parts,” he said. “Anything attached to industrial farming will include animal excrement as well, which is a huge disposal problem.

“I think using animals in the supply chain for energy is a big deal at the moment, particularly in gas, but also in electricity. I hope that will change.”

The adoption of grass energy will be driven by consumers as more green energy options emerge, according to Syed Ahmed, of the Green Gas Verification Scheme. Ahmed said: “There are vasts amounts of material that we can use to produce renewable gas. Grass might be one of them. There are loads of others, food waste agricultural byproducts, waste that comes from food factories and so on. We can at the very least increase the amount of gas that we produce.”

Vince’s company has previously predicted that Britain could produce 97% of domestic gas by 2035. In addition to the new plant, Vince also revealed his plans to invest in three major solar projects worth millions each, and have already received planning consent and will be built over the next 18 months.