Energy companies are pressing the Government to make it easier for them to take advantage of a historic opportunity as Spain leads the renewable gas revolution and becomes a major gas ‘centre’ in Europe. This Spanish Gas Association (Sedigás) Calls on the Director for public assistance and legislative reforms to exploit the potential for biomethane production – derived from biogas produced by recycling organic waste – to ensure local energy and supply security and promote the energy transition towards decarbonisation.
Association of gas employers, which brings together marketers, transport and distribution network companies and suppliers in the sector, Spain has the potential to produce 163 terawatt hours (TWh) of biomethane per year, it would have managed to meet 45% of all Spain’s natural gas demand last year, saving around 4,000 million euros on consumers’ energy bills due to the reduction in gas purchases from third countries. In 2022, biomethane production did not even reach 0.25 TWh.
Biomethane is a biogas obtained by the decomposition of residues from agriculture, animal husbandry or wastewater, and mixed with domestic and industrial equipment, which has been subjected to a cleaning process to make it compatible with existing natural gas. today it uses gas and also with existing gas networks. Therefore, it is a local energy generation with industrial and circular economy effect by reusing organic waste and this helps in decarbonisation.
Realizing the full national potential for the production of this renewable gas, according to Sedigás and PWC’s estimates collected in the ‘Study of Spain’s biomethane production capacity’, 2,326 private facilities across the country, compared to five projects currently in operation and nearly 200 projects in companies’ portfolios. The construction of these more than two thousand facilities will require an investment of approximately €40,500 million by 2030 and the creation of 62,000 direct and indirect jobs related to their operation and maintenance.
“In Spain, support from the administrations has virtually disappeared.Therefore, there is a notable difference in the growth of the biomethane sector in our country, in terms of production and number of plants in operation, compared to other countries in the European Union,” complains Joan Batalla, president of Sedigás.
“While it is true that first steps have been taken for the progressive development of this energy vector – such as the approval of the Biogas Roadmap – there are still a number of administrative, regulatory, economic and financial barriers that limit investment in new biomethane production infrastructures”. France, Germany, Denmark or Sweden’ The government incentives applied in Turkey are vital to encourage the development of this technology and encourage both the investor and the consumer.
targets up
“We’re late on biogas,” Teresa Ribera, vice president and minister for Ecological Transition, told the Dialogues for Democracy Club this Thursday. “We have great potential because of the large amount of waste that can be used.” And though late, the Ministry is preparing changes to try to increase this potential.
The government is already working on an update National Energy and Climate Plan (PNIEC)The official roadmap for promoting decarbonisation of the economy and energy system over the next decade. The revision of the plan will include more ambitious targets for the deployment of renewable energies by 2030, and the Administration is also poised to place more emphasis on renewable gases, with increases in biomethane production targets and a major boost to green hydrogen.
In the REPowerEU roadmap to stop the energy crisis and accelerate the break with Russia, the European Union places strategic emphasis on supporting renewable gases as an alternative to a greener future with more energy sovereignty. The European plan sets the target to expand biomethane production to 35,000 million cubic meters to meet 10% of gas consumption. It is foreseen that 10,000 million resources will be allocated for the strengthening of the gas networks, through which renewable gas will circulate.