Ribera brings to public hearing the EU law to control the biogas sector

The Government has taken the preliminary step for the transposition of the new directive of renewables of Brussels that endorses the European Commission to certify the national installations of biomass and gases of green origin.

The Ministry for ecological transition has taken the first step to curb the biogas industry. The department headed by Teresa Ribera has taken to public hearing the new community directive that, among other things, will require the certification of the production facilities of gases of green origin located in our country, under the watchful eye of the European Commission (EC). The deadline to submit allegations to this regulatory adjustment will open this Thursday and will close on October 14.

This is a preliminary step for the transposition of this regulatory turn, which is part of the new renewable energy directive (REF II), which will begin to impose a series of mandatory sustainability requirements that must be met by all producers of biomass, solid and gaseous fuels, throughout the Territory of the Community. These are known as guarantees of origin, a measure that has long been requested by the gas sector.

One of the most anticipated effects of this standard responds to the impact on the development of green hydrogen, one of the foci in which Spain hopes to channel a good part of the Next Generation funds and an important incentive for foreign investment in the national energy industry. The promotion of the biogas sector is a pending issue in our country, since the national industry has experienced a much more modest development in this field than that shown by other European neighbors.

When this directive enters into force, the European Commission will examine the 146 biogas facilities that exist in our country, 129 of them were already operational last year. The production capacity of all of them amounts to 2.74 TWh. The radiography of this industry shows that 46 of these facilities are linked to landfills, while 34 are related to wastewater treatment plants and another 13 are associated with the agricultural sector. The rest are linked to the paper, food and chemical industries.

The certification of the biogas industry is part of the battery of proposals that the Commission has accelerated to harmonise the policies of all Member States in the areas of climate, energy, land use, taxation… with the aim of cutting net greenhouse gas emissions until reaching climate neutrality by 2050. In the European Union, excluding Spain, there are around 19,000 biogas plants of which more than 7oo inject biomethane into the gas pipeline network. In our country only one facility located in Madrid is able to supply this fuel to the ‘highways’ of the gas network.

Source: La Información