Terasen Gas customers will now have an option to heat their homes with something other than natural gas.
The BC Utilities Commission approved Terasen Gas’s proposal to provide a new renewable natural gas program for an initial two-year period.
Beginning next year, up to 24,000 residential customers will be able to subscribe to the program on a first-come, first-serve basis to receive up to 10% off their natural gas sourced from local renewable energy projects that produce a biogas that can be converted into pipeline-quality biomethane.
The biomethane, or renewable natural gas, for the project will be sourced from the biogas generated by Catalyst Power Inc. from agricultural waste and landfill gas in the Columbia Shuswap Regional District.
Terasen customers who subscribe to the program will pay about a $4 premium to replace the equivalent of 10% of their natural gas supply with biomethane. The company plans to make about 210,000 gigajoules of biomethane available for purchase in the first year of the program.
The company said the program would provide an environmental benefit by reducing the amount of methane usually released into the atmosphere.
Methane, like carbon dioxide, is a greenhouse gas but is 21 times more powerful in warming the atmosphere than carbon dioxide.
The amount of energy generated in the first year is expected to reduce the amount of greenhouse gas emissions by 11,000 tonnes, or the equivalent of removing 2,000 cars off the road.