A proposal for a new bio-methane refuelling station off Commonhead Roundabout is going through the Swindon Borough Council planning process.

And the company which gets gas to homes and businesses throughout the borough as well as wider Wiltshire hopes more will be on the way.

Matthew Hindle is head of net zero and sustainability at Wales & West Utilities, which maintains the infrastructure that means gas can be pumped to where it is needed in the region – and he said he hoped both support from central government and local authorities, via the planning system, for the growth in facilities for bio-methane continues.

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Bio-methane, sometimes known as Bio-compressed natural gas or Bio-CNG is produced by managing the decomposition of organic material. It can be produced by food or garden waste the remnant of farm crops after harvest, or even animal manure or sewage, or any combination of the four main materials.

Mr Hindle said: “Once bio-methane is in the pipe network it can be used wherever and however natural gas is used, it’s exactly the same, and you don’t need to change anything for the user.

“Any vehicles that can run on compressed natural gas or liquified natural gas can run on bio-methane.”

Mrs Hindle says the size of the vehicle market for biomethane is currently small, compared to traditional diesel, but it is growing, with four refuelling sites connected to the Wales and West network in recent years.

And while carbon is emitted by the burning of bio-methane, industry sources say that the emissions are just a tenth of those caused by burning natural gas or other fossil fuels like petrol or diesel.

Mr Hindle said: “Whether from use at home or in vehicles it makes significant savings over fossil fuels.”

And he added that Wiltshire as a rural county, is a particularly good place for the production of bio-methane: “Anything we could eat or have eaten is good for a digester. There are sites using crops, farm waste, sewage from sewage works, and food waste.

“And food waste and sewage waste it produced more by more urban areas.”

There are three sites in Wiltshire producing biomethane for the grid, at Bromham House Farm north west of Devizes, Charlton Park Farm, near Malmesbury and the Wessex Water site at Trowbridge.

Mr Hindle said: “About, three per cent of Wiltshire’s gas demand is met by those three sites, that’s over 8,000 homes, whose needs are being met by sites in Wiltshire producing home-grown gas.

“Producing bio-methane is widely recognised to be the best way to deal with organic waste, and it produces massive benefits when we are looking to decarbonise the system- we need replacements for everything we use natural gas for today.

“The scale of gas demand in the winter, and the way we use gas in industry means that fully electrifying all of that is just not going to happen easily or quickly, without a huge impact.

“If we can decarbonise gas that will cause huge benefits for our communities and our economy.”

Recent years, with the invasion of Ukraine by Russia and a subsequent huge hike in the price of gas, also show how much benefit there is in the UK producing its own bio-gas, Mr Hindle said.

He added: “We've seen countries across the EU redoubling efforts to support home-grown efforts to produce bio-methane into the European gas system, which includes the UK.”

And he said both national and local government support is needed to keep that growth going: “A lot comes down to national energy policy, so we are going to need the green gas support scheme to continue and to be funded; at a local level we hope its recognised how important bio-methane is to the UK’s low-carbon goals, and therefore the right developments are supported through the planning system when they come forward."