From 2003 until 2007 two of DECC’s predecessor departments (first the Department of Trade & Industry (DTI) and subsequently the Department of Business, Enterprise & Regulatory Reform (BERR)) carried out a systematic review of the implications of our increasing import-dependence for the quality (composition and energy content) of gas supplied to consumers.
Information on gas quality from the BERR website, as at January 2008, is available on the National Archive's Gas quality archive web pages.
The review culminated in the publication of a Government Response to consultation on future arrangements for Great Britain’s gas quality specifications (November 2007). Full details of the consultation and the respone are available on the National Archives version of the Future Arrangements for Great Britain's Gas Quality Specifications page on the BERR website.
This concluded in favour of the “no change” option – it reaffirmed an earlier assurance not to propose changes to GB’s regulated gas specification to take effect before around 2020, and it added that in the light of the present exercise it was not proposing changes post-2020 either. It set out a forward plan, consisting of:
- support for Ofgem’s work on maximising the commercial flexibilities for the GB gas market to handle gases of different specifications; whilst
- continuing to engage in EU discussions on the gas quality issue
Information about the European Commission’s project to harmonise the gas quality in the European Union is available on the European Commission: Gas quality harmonisation web page.