Europe LPG industry must fight to save gas boiler

The LPG sector will first have to persuade EU policy makers that the ‘heating source of the future' will be powered by renewable gas, writes Matt Scotland

The European LPG industry must ensure the EU and national governments do not pursue plans to hastily phase out or ban gas boilers if it is to survive over the long term, delegates heard at the European LPG Congress in Barcelona on 29-30 June.

The European Commission proposed amendments to the energy performance of buildings directive (EPBD) in December 2021, which while falling short of proposing an EU-level ban on gas boilers, would require new buildings and renovations to ensure 100pc of on-site heating comes from renewables by 2030. EU states must also plan for a complete phase-out of fossil fuel use in buildings by 2040. EU energy ministers and officials as well as members of the European Parliament are still discussing the texts, with votes expected later this year.

The parliament's chief negotiator on the proposals, green MEP Ciaran Cuffe, is understood to want to ban "LPG and other fossil fuel heating systems with immediate effect in all new or renovated buildings by 2035", former MEP Chris Davies told attendees of European LPG association Liquid Gas Europe's congress. The LPG and natural gas industries argue that such a position neglects the opportunity to heat buildings with renewable gases using current boiler and heating systems. The proposed alternatives, largely electric heat pumps, are expensive and unsuitable for certain buildings — including older and poorly insulated homes, many of which are found in rural, off-grid areas.

"The gas boiler is our livelihood — if it gets banned, we have a real problem," distributor DCC's LPG president Henry Cubbon says. "We are doing a lot of work with regulators to see if we can position the gas boiler as a heating source of the future, powered by renewable gas." UK LPG association Liquid Gas UK says it is making progress in convincing prime minister Boris Johnson to reverse a policy to prohibit the sale of gas boilers and target installing 600,000 heat pumps by 2028. "[Johnson] is waking up to the fact that it will be impossible. The government is now turning to us and saying, ‘fine, but where is the renewable gas?' So we reply, ‘it is coming, it is coming'. It has got to come somehow," Cubbon says.

It all boils down to lobbying

The challenge for the LPG sector is to get its message to EU policy makers at the same time as working on establishing building currently negligible volumes of renewable LPG. Electrification of heating will not be enough to achieve the EU's climate policy objectives, while off-grid homes must not be neglected. Teaming up with the biogas and natural gas associations, previously competitors, is one way to ensure the LPG sector is heard in Brussels, distributor SHV Energy chief executive Bram Graber says. The policy landscape will play a critical role in the industry's future from 2030. "If gas boilers are banned too early, we will not have a chance [to decarbonise], that is why advocacy work is so important," Spanish oil firm Repsol industrial transformation and technological director Adriana Orejas Nunez says.