The 2015 EBA Biogas Report shows Europe is doing well

As the main European association in the fields of biogas and biomethane, the European Biogas Association (EBA) monitors the industry it is dedicated to in order to point out its evolution, characteristics, strengths, and weaknesses. Created in 2009, the EBA currently represents 25 countries. Exposing the current state of the European biogas industry, the 2015 EBA Biogas Report shows Europe is doing well and should keep on getting better and grow more. Briefly, Germany has a seriously flourishing biogas industry, about half the other countries are doing well or better, and the remaining half is still significantly behind.

European biogas portrait

The 2015 EBA report indicates that the overall European number of installed biogas plants is growing every year and has experienced a growth of 18.33% in 2014 thus bringing the total number of installed biogas plants to 17,240. Germany has by far the biggest proportion of this number with 10,786 biogas plants while Italy and the UK follow second and third with – only – 1491 and 813 plants. All these anaerobic digestion plants equal a potential electrical capacity of almost 8.3 GW, and they generated throughout the year 63.6 TWh of electricity, which represents the consumption of 14.6 million people. In addition, 32.2 TWh of heat have been produced. While most countries use biogas to produce both electricity and heat with variable proportions, it is interesting to note that Bulgaria, Spain, Ireland, Portugal, Slovenia and Switzerland all produce exclusively electricity from their biogas production. Moreover, accordingly to their higher number of plants, the three countries that have generated the most biogas in 2014 are Germany, Italy, and the UK, while all the others are left far behind.

European biomethane portrait

Concerning the biomethane production, which is obtained by refining or upgrading biogas, the report states some interesting stats. In 2014, the number of biomethane plants has risen by 30% for a total of 367 installed plants, and a proportion of 70% of these plants are directly pushing biomethane into the natural gas grid. Over the year, Europe has produced approximately 1.4 billion cubic meters of biomethane, from which a proportion of around 10% was used for fuel in transportation. Nonetheless, biomethane plants are far less common than biogas plants in Europe and most countries do not have a lot of them. In fact, the vast majority is located in Germany, Sweden, and the UK, which have respectively 178, 59, and 37 biomethane plants as of 2104. However, since the objective is to inject more and more biomethane into the natural gas grid, the number of biomethane plants should increase a lot considering that up to 26% of the biogas produced is planned to be upgraded in 2020, a proportion that will increase up to 37.5% in 2030.

In the end, even though biogas and biomethane have a bright future, a lot of work is still to be done by the industry promoters to make it becoming reality. Thus, this industry should clearly be more put upfront and developed as a green technology generating clean renewable energy. This is obviously not only true for Europe and the EBA, but also for the global biogas industry as well as any concerned association or business. Consequently, this is the reason why BiogasWorld exists and is dedicated to promoting this sustainable industry while catalyzing it by connecting its stakeholders worldwide.

By Simon Lefebvre | 2016-04-26

Source: Erneszt Kovács (EBA)