Indeed, Italy is set to lead the EU in achieving its 2030 biomethane goals, driven by its strong biogas sector, favourable legislative measures and extensive grid system. Biomethane is key to the Italian National Energy Strategy.
Bioenergy in the EU is always relevant for Ukraine, so let’s take a closer look at the basis of this statement from Italian industry leaders.
Opportunities and prospects
Under the RePowerEU plan, designed to speed up Europe’s independence from Russian fossil fuels, the continent has set a target of 35bcm of biomethane by 2030, accounting for 10% of European gas consumption.
Іtaly has around 2,000 biogas plants and strong expertise, backed by experience and knowledge, in the sector. In addition, the Italian gas transmission system operator Snam manages the world’s largest gas network system, with more than 30,000 km of pipelines.
Maserati Energia biomethane plant (Sarmato, Italy). Source: SEBIGAS.
Under Italy’s national resilience and recovery plan, the country is planning to allocate nearly €2 billion through five competitive tenders until 2026 to support the development of new biomethane production facilities and the conversion of existing biogas plants to biomethane.
Nicola Battilana, head of asset planning at Snam, said Italy currently had 77 biomethane plants connected to the grid with an annual production of 760mcm, with another 148 under construction. These plants are expected to be operational within the next 1-2 years, adding another 440mcm per year to the country’s production capacity.
Growth incentives
The first biomethane productions were connected to the network in 2016. Since Italy increased state incentives for biomethane in 2022, the country had seen “a significant increase in both the connection requests and even more in the contracts that were eventually signed.
Last year, the number of requests for grid connection from power plants almost doubled to 327 from 170 in 2022. Accordingly, the acceptance of binding connection proposals jumped to 104 in 2023 from 24 in 2022.
The Easy Energia Ambiente biomethane plant (Pontinia municipality, Lazio region, Italy). Source: Anaergia.
The representative of Infralab, an Italian renewable energy company, emphasised that Italy had potential to reach a 6bcm production target by the end of the decade. However, several challenges must be addressed to realise this potential, including simplifying permitting procedures, maintaining strong state incentives and managing connection costs.
The advantages of biomethane for Italy
Piero Gattoni, president of the CIB (Consorzio Italiano Biogas) highlights the benefits of biomethane, such as greening gas networks:
“Biomethane must play a key role in the National Energy Strategy because it is a renewable, programmable, flexible energy capable of delivering a potential of 10 billion m3 by 2030, of which at least 8 from agricultural feedstocks”.
Biogas and biomethane fully respond to the evolutionary requirements of the energy system for several reasons. Its production, due to the increasing efficiency and the spread of innovations, has a solid path of reducing production costs. Produced with the principles of “BiogasDoneRight”, it enables full integration between food and energy production, with increased productivity and food security.
Biomethane plants bought by Verdalia Bioenergy this year (Brescia, Italy). Source: Verdalia Bioenergy.
Biogas and biomethane are also the only programmable renewable source that enables effective integration between different energy systems. It can also contribute to the greening of the gas network: once injected into the grid, it can be used for different purposes and makes possible the progressive decarbonisation of ‘non-electrifiable’ sectors, i.e. heavy, naval, agriculture, industry
Sources: Montel News, EBA.