The Europe Clean Industrial Deal sets no clear pathway for biomethane on the continent, concentrates on electrification and favours less competitive low-carbon gases, according to the European Biogas Association (EBA).
While welcoming the accent on cleantech manufacturing as a key enabler of industrial transformation, Harmen Dekker, the EBA’s CEO, said the EU should invest in reducing gas dependency much faster.
“Biogases will play a decisive role as the most scalable and cost-effective renewable gas, [and an] enabler of much needed grid flexibility,” he said.
“To help EU industries become more clean and competitive, we urge EU legislators to be more bold on their support for those green gases made in Europe that are championing renewable gas deployment today, by ramping up the production of biogases and fostering their industrial use.”
Biogases are currently providing 22 bcm of renewable gas. With a minimum potential to supply 101 bcm by 2040, the sector can cover over 80% of the EU’s forecasted gas consumption by 2040.
Investors are now also reported to be ready to move faster on the opportunity presented by Europe’s biogas and biomethane technologies.
Representatives of Europe’s biogases industry have already made it clear that biogases must be a key pillar in de-fossilisation pathways through support for the Biomethane Offtakers Declaration released earlier this month.
Electrification is a difficult path for many energy-intensive industries today and renewable gas alternatives, such as biomethane, will be needed to ensure their cost-competitive transition.
Biogases are also circularity frontrunners. This is a key priority of the new Commission’s strategy, which is to adopt a Circular Economy Act in 2026, enabling free movement of circular products, waste or high quality recyclates, as well as stimulating demand for circular products.
This sets high expectations towards the full valorisation of biogases, produced from multiple waste streams, and their co-products, resulting from the optimisation of the production process. Outputs also include digestate, an organic fertiliser, and biogenic CO₂, a substitute of its fossil counterpart for all those industrial processes depending on CO₂.
Circularity is key to maximising the EU’s limited resources, reducing dependencies, enhancing resilience and sustainability. This point was stressed in European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s speech in Antwerp yesterday.
Read more: Four make-or-break areas for the Europe Clean Industrial Deal
The EBA has urged EU legislators to further leverage the strengths of the biogases value chain by speeding up the growth of EU-made biomethane, accelerating the deployment of new biomethane production capacities, simplifying procedures and protecting the biogas value chain.
It has also called for channelling some of the investment mechanisms set up by the Clean Industrial Deal, as well as looking for a push on sectoral skills. And it wants to see a market created to valorise sustainable products, including biogenic CO2 and bio-based fertilisers.
