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New Energy World
New Energy World embraces the whole energy industry as it connects and converges to address the decarbonisation challenge. It covers progress being made across the industry, from the dynamics under way to reduce emissions in oil and gas, through improvements to the efficiency of energy conversion and use, to cutting-edge initiatives in renewable and low carbon technologies.
Europe’s market for anaerobic digestion and biogas production
8/2/2023
6 min read
The anaerobic digestion of organic wastes delivers a biogas that can be upgraded to biomethane with a variety of uses to replace fossil fuels. Paul Hudson, Senior Industry Analyst at Frost & Sullivan, takes a look at trends in the industry across Europe.
European Union (EU) countries have adopted the EU Green Deal, which aims to make Europe the first climate-neutral continent by 2050. As part of its net zero by 2050 strategy, it created policy and legislative initiatives such as the Renewable Energy Directives (RED), published in 2016 and revised in 2018 as RED II, which set a target of 32% renewables share in energy consumption and 14% renewables share in energy for the transport sector by 2030. The EU’s latest package of measures, ‘Fit for 55’, aims to reduce the EU’s greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 55% by 2030.
These policies favour the production and use of biogas and biomethane (which is also known as renewable natural gas, RNG) as a sustainable and green alternative to natural gas (fossil-based).
Biogas is a mixture of methane, CO2 and other impurities such as hydrogen sulphide, which is produced by the anaerobic digestion of organic matter such as livestock manure, crop residue, energy crops (eg maize), organic municipal and industrial waste, food waste and sewage sludge. Biogas can be further upgraded to get biomethane. The upgrading process involves the removal of impurities such as CO2 and hydrogen sulphide, resulting in pure methane.