As part of its REPowerEU plan, the European Commission proposed on the 18th of May a Biomethane Action Plan, including a Biomethane Industrial Alliance, to stimulate the renewable gas value chain and achieve the production of 35 bcm of biomethane by 2030.
The Biomethane Action Plan explores the actions that could be envisaged to achieve the target of 35 bcm annual biomethane production by 2030 as set out in the REPowerEU Communication of March 2022. Among these actions, the European Commission highlights the necessary support to innovative solutions and research on barriers and integration of sustainable biomethane to the gas grid. According to the plan, this action should focus on integrating results from research projects, including Horizon 2020 project REGATRACE on a pan-European methane grid access action plan.
REGATRACE is a valuable project to address bottlenecks, such as cross border trading, for biomethane project scale up. The development of a European renewable gas market is essential to ensure that increasing shares of renewable gases are injected into our gas grids. This will support the decarbonisation of the gas sector in the path towards a climate-neutral Europe. By providing certainty and information on where, when and how the renewable gas is produced, renewable gas certificates give confidence in the green gas sector, encourage gas producers to inject green gas into the grid and allow for biomethane producers to sell the gas to all EU member states.