Methane Emissions

The avoidance and reduction of methane emissions is an important topic that we have been working on for a long time. Compared to agriculture or natural methane sources, our storage facilities are known to have relatively low methane releases, and technical and organisational measures are effective and implemented to avoid these emissions as much as possible. Since methane has a high climate impact in the atmosphere in the short term according to current findings, we have committed ourselves to controlling potential methane emissions even more intensively and to reducing them further accordingly in order to increase our contribution to the important decarbonisation of the energy sector here.

• Control and reduce methane emissions at all operated gas storage facilities 

• Develop green hydrogen storage solutions

Uniper Energy Storage has voluntarily committed to reducing its annual methane emissions by 45% by 2025 compared to 2015. Therefore we participated to develop and apply reliable methane detection methodologies with increasing sensitivities and implemented various technical optimisation measures. 

As a result, we successfully achieved substantial methane emission reductions of more than 50% compared to the base year 2015. And we are committed to further reduce our emissions.

We reported in 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023 the majority of our methane emissions from operated assets based on OGMP 2.0 standards and actually achieved level 4 in reporting quality, meaning to have fulfilled “Gold Standard” qualification in all four years. 

The current report "An Eye on Methane: International Methane Emissions Observatory 2024 Report" can be found here.  

Our focus is on minimising methane emissions that can arise from the use and especially the storage of natural gas.

Our storage facilities are always operated in accordance with the current state of the art and the highest safety standards and are technically tight. In accordance with legal requirements, they are also regularly inspected and adapted to current standards and modernised. Regular plant operation nevertheless leads to unavoidable emissions, which we reduce to a minimum through intensive controls and constant improvement measures. For example, we use processes that channel the natural gas into other parts of the plant or feed it into an energetic use through combustion when parts of the plant are depressurised. This becomes necessary in the event of an overhaul or an operational malfunction. In this way, the release of unburned methane - as far as required for safety reasons - can be prevented and resulting CO2 emissions minimised. We make great efforts to detect and remedy even minor leaks at an early stage. For this purpose, regular recurring campaigns are carried out to check the function and leak tightness of all essential plant components. These activities are also referred to as Leak Detection and Repair (LDAR). Leaks detected in the course of LDAR campaigns are repaired immediately, taking into account and balancing the minimisation of overall emissions due to the repair, the safety of plant operation and ensuring security of supply for end consumers. At the same time, we are working on the continuous further development of techniques and methods of emission monitoring and leakage detection as well as technologies to avoid methane emissions. We see this as part of our operator responsibility.

As part of OGMP 2.0, we have voluntarily committed to further and continuously reduce our methane emissions for climate protection.

At the end of 2020, Uniper Energy Storage joined the Oil & Gas Methane Partnership (OGMP 2.0), an international initiative of companies in the oil and gas industry led by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). The initiative has set itself the goal of developing and implementing a uniform standard "OGMP 2.0" for recording and reporting methane emissions in the oil and gas industry and, if possible, establishing it worldwide. The standards developed should help to ensure that emissions are recorded reliably and comparably in the future, that transparency of methane emissions caused by the use of fossil fuels is created and that these emissions are minimised more quickly, specifically and effectively.