Biomethane, an emerging sector

All the premises are in place in Italy for substantially reducing imports of natural gas of fossil origin. The production of bio-methane from organic solid wastes of agricultural and integrated crop origins is promising opportunities for curbing climate changing emissions, creating new jobs and fostering growth and innovation in agriculture and industry

Among all the European Countries Italy reports the greatest dependency on natural gas for primary energy consumption, some 40%, for an important share of producing heat for homes and industry and also for generating electricity and for motor vehicles. For accessing this source of fossil fuel recourse is almost exclusively turned to imports, at 90% of the supply, with the critical factor in the form of the absence of certainty of continuous supply and price stability due to the complicated geopolitical framework of the country’s major supplies, Russia, Algeria and Libya.

Gas consumption in 2013 came to 70 billion cubic meters (cm) for a sharp drop under that of previous years as a result of the economic crisis and the increase of renewables. However, according to reliable forecasts cited also in the National Energy Strategy (NES), the annual gas requirement over the coming five years is not expected to vary greatly from 69-73 billion cm.

Taking up the issue of “the sustainable production of hydrocarbons”, the NES displays an approach to Italian energy production mostly based on the use of fossil sources but it would be better to reconsider bio-energy precisely in relation to signals of the growth of RES (Renewable Energy Sources) contributing – in a decisive way the replacement of traditional polluting fuels in the sectors of heating and transport.

Precisely for the possibility of replacing natural gas with a renewable product, a valid solution is provided with the development of bio-methane. This is obtained from biogas by separating out the methane content from carbon dioxide and other components with various technologies and solutions adapted for plants of all sizes and widely available on the market. In Italy, the bio-methane produced from biomass residues and/or dedicated renewable and local crops could, according to realistic estimates, replace 10% of the natural gas now consumed. The potential of bio-methane which could be produced annually is, in fact, close to 8 billion mc. 

This figure provides a very interesting scale of the quantity and, though it is only indicative, should spur a series of verifications for defining the quantities at play with greater certainty and the economic fallout which could be produced, as suggested also in the plan for the bio-energy sector drafted by the Ministry for Agricultural, Food and Forestry Policy, MiPAAF.

The opportunities offered by the biogas supply chain have been fully taken up by a large number of Italian farms which, over the past five years, have invested more than € 3 billion on the construction of plants with features solely for farms. There are some 1,300 installations of this type in Italy today with electricity generating capacities close to 1,000 MW which – to make the idea clear – correspond to the production of one modern nuclear power plant. This leads to the thinking that downstream from energy production,  instead of radioactive waste disposal, raising the value of anaerobic digestion (digestate)   as a precious resource would return and restore fertility to the land

Thanks to a decree dated December 5, 2013, which establishes the criteria and incentives for the introduction of bio-methane to the national gas network, for more than a year the biogas supply chain has had the possibility of adding another link to the production cycle to extend the market to opening to the production of this promising energy vector. 

In fact, bio-methane produced by the removal of  CO2  from biogas or upgrading is 95% to 98% methane which is chemically similar to natural gas and can be introduced to the distribution network. The final destination of bio-methane can be for domestic appliances, the cogeneration of centralized plants, that is for the production of heat for use in a more efficient way, and service stations for motor vehicles running on methane.

This latter option is very easily to adapt to some of the infrastructure characteristics of Italy, long in length and with a capillary distribution system for methane with more than 32,000 km of methane pipelines and some 1,000 service stations for a large inventory of motor vehicles using this fuel. These 860,000 vehicles account for 80% in this category in Europe and 5% in the world and there are numerous technological systems ideal for the production of bio-methane. 

Moreover, it must be recalled that in October 2014 the Ministry for Economic Development published the first decree in Europe on advanced biofuels, a regulatory instrument which stipulates the annual quantity of biofuels to issue for mandatory release for consumption from 2015 to 2022. Beginning in 2018 the decree introduces the specific obligation to use advanced biofuels derived exclusively from raw materials which do not enter into competition with the production of food products.     

Accounting will be kept for the quantities of biofuels mixed with gasoline and diesel released for the national transport market, including bio-methane, for the purpose of verifying the mandatory release for consumption.

Thanks to the relatively low energy density of methanogenesis biomass, which requires short distance transport, the production of biogas and bio-methane is a bio-energy supply chain which is best integrated with farms relying on local infrastructure, machinery and matrices.

All this can stimulate the growth of the Italian industry supplying the technologies related to the green economy and create jobs to boost GDP in the rural framework as well as in industry. 

An example is the integration of biomass spinoff for generating increasing agricultural GSP, gross salable production, by more than € 2 billion per year, equal to some 5% of present agriculture GDP. Moreover, the financial impact of savings resulting from the reductions in the costs of fertilizer and disposing of livestock solid wastes could be even greater for farms.

With the prospect of producing 8 million m3  bio-methane annually Made in Italy, the country could save about € 5 billion per year through the reduction of natural gas and biofuels imports.

In closing, what must not be left out is the growth and innovation opportunities in the sector of methane motorization and agricultural mechanization with the development of bio-methane adding drive to important industrial projects – an example is the Methane Power T6.140 tractor by New Holland – to maintain Italy’s leadership in this production sector of technologies and components.