A new report suggests biodiesel could play an important role in reducing our reliance on the fossil-based oils which currently heat more than a million homes in the UK.
The report Evaluation of Bioliquid Technologies for Dedicated Heat Generation was written by the UK's National Centre for Biorenewable Energy, Fuels and Materials (NNFCC) to consider alternatives to non-renewable heating oils.

There are currently 1.4 million households in the UK using heating oil, and every year the country gets through 0.1 million tonnes of gas oil and 2.3 million tonnes of kerosene.

Using renewable alternatives to fossil-based heating oils has the potential to reduce fuel bills and greenhouse gas emission, says the NNFCC. However, replacing or converting our current system to one based on renewables could be costly.

The NNFCC was commissioned by the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) to gather evidence on the most suitable bio-liquid heat only technologies, and their costs, to support research for phase two of the Renewable Heat Incentive.

The study considered bio-liquids with the potential to be used as heating fuel, either now or in the near-term, such as vegetable oil, biodiesel and used cooking oil.

'Due to the physical properties of bio-liquids they cannot be simply dropped-in to conventional boilers; instead we can either convert existing boilers to use bio-liquids or build completely new dedicated bio-liquid heat plants,' said Fiona McDermott, biomass research officer at the NNFCC and author of the report.

'We found the biggest market opportunity for bio-liquids was with existing domestic oil users, primarily those off the gas-grid, with a smaller secondary market potential in industrial heat plants.'

The report found that biodiesel will be the preferred bio-liquid fuel in the near-term, because it is of higher and more consistent quality than vegetable or used cooking oils.

To read more about the report click here.