Coinciding with the first communication by the European Commission of the Clean Industrial Deal, the four Horizon Europe projects within the biomethane cluster BIOMETHAVERSE, HyFuelUp, METHAREN and SEMPRE-BIO presented in a webinar on 26 February 2025 the main conclusions of their second joint report, entitled ‘State of Play of Biogas and Biomethane in Europe: An Update on Market Gaps and Policy Recommendations’, which analyses the gaps in the biogas and biomethane market in Europe and proposes policy recommendations for the sector.
The report was jointly drafted in October 2024 by the Horizon Europe projects BIOMETHAVERSE, HyFuelUp, METHAREN and SEMPRE-BIO. It provides a current overview of the European renewable gas sector, analysing the gap between the targets that each country has set in their respective National Energy and Climate Plans (NECPs) and their actual production potential; the main challenges faced by the different countries to meet the REPowerEU target of producing 35 bcm of biogas and/or biomethane by 2030, the situation of certificates of origin and cross-border trade, as well as a compilation of policy and market recommendations to make biomethane production take off in the European Union.
To officially present this report, coordinated by the Spanish Technological and Innovation Platform in Biocircularity (BIOPLAT) as responsible for the Communication and Dissemination of the HyFuelUp project, representatives of the renewable gases sector that make up the four projects participated in the presentation of each of the sections of the report:
- Anna Venturini, Policy Director of the European Biogas Association (EBA), representing the BIOMETHAVERSE project, presented the analysis of the NECPs’ targets versus the actual potential of each country.
- Jaqueline Daniel-Gromke, Head of the Biochemical Conversion division at DBFZ, representing the SEMPRE-BIO project, explained the main gaps for the deployment of biomethane in the European Union.
- Tim Hamers, Secretary General of ERGaR, and member of the METHAREN project, spoke about certificates of origin and the challenges facing cross-border trade.
- Gonçalo Lourinho, BIOREF CoLAB Researcher and Coordinator of the HyFuelUp project, presented the policy and market recommendations for biomethane take-off in the European Union.
- Finally, Margarita de Gregorio, Secretary General of BIOPLAT, moderated the round table dedicated to future forecasts for the renewable gases sector, also on behalf of HyFuelUp.
For all of them, biomethane is one of the best assets the European Union has to ensure its reindustrialization and energy independence from Russian fossil fuels. Despite the upward trend in biomethane production in recent years, the European Union is still far from reaching the target set by the REPowerEU plan.
Among the obstacles that still hinder the full development of biomethane in Europe are the lack of political will, the problems derived from the social license and the low acceptance of biomethane in many countries, and the excessive permitting that the projects have to bear.
