Victoria: Gas Substitution Roadmap – biomethane and hydrogen for hard-to-electrify industry

The Victorian state government published the Gas Substitution Roadmap in early July 2022 – a plan for reducing natural gas use in the state. Energy Minister Lily D'Ambrosio presented it as a way to lower bills and to move households and businesses to fully electric solutions. The document relies on energy efficiency and electrification, and describes biomethane and hydrogen as options for industry that cannot easily switch to electricity. The media give different publication dates: 4 July in most reports, while pv magazine pointed to Saturday 2 July.

The role of renewable gases

According to accounts of the roadmap, biomethane and hydrogen are meant to give industry investment certainty where electrification is difficult or expensive – in high-temperature heat, metallurgy, glass or chemicals. Because biomethane depends on the availability of organic feedstocks, it can replace only part of today's gas consumption. The document did not introduce a binding target for renewable gases.

Criticism

Environment Victoria, in publishing a commentary on the roadmap on 4 July 2022, criticised the document for lacking clear targets and deadlines and for not ruling out hydrogen from fossil fuels.

What next

The state government's further work on biomethane and renewable hydrogen (after July 2022) is described in the update note. The document itself sets an order of priorities: first reduce the demand for gas, then replace it where necessary.

Significance for biomethane

Victoria chose an order of priorities: first reduce demand, then replace gas where necessary. This approach limits the risk of investing in renewable gas infrastructure of uncertain scale. On the other hand, the lack of a biomethane target means that investors have no clear demand signal, and Australia's first project injecting biomethane into the grid – Malabar in New South Wales – came about outside state policy.

What this means for Poland

In the EU the justification for biomethane is usually its role in decarbonising the existing grid. Victoria shows an alternative philosophy: priority for electrification, with renewable gases only where there is no other way. For Polish biomethane producers this is a signal that the most resilient projects are those with industrial customers that have no electrification option.