Irish Gas Forum

The Irish energy sector is undergoing a transition to a low carbon future. Although much of the focus to date has been on electricity there is now a need to move the policy debate towards the transition of Ireland’s natural gas network to low carbon gas sources. There are an emerging number of elements to the decarbonisation of the natural gas infrastructure including biomethane injection, carbon capture and storage and power-to-gas hydrogen technologies. This transition will likely be accelerated by the next policy milestone that will be the EU’s Gas Package which is currently being formulated and should be finalised by the new Commission in spring 2020.

The objective of this conference is to look at the options for decarbonisation and how they might be applied in an Irish context. Key topics to be discussed include:

• The rationale for decarbonising the gas network;
• Economics of decarbonising the heat and transport sectors;
• UK plans for its gas network;
• Biomethane injection into the gas network;
• The future role of hydrogen;
• The potential for CCS to achieve a zero-carbon gas network.