Europe’s biomethane output is poised to increase to align with the European Commission’s REPowerEU. Yet, the biomethane production map (GIE/EBA) shows a highly geographically fragmented production picture. In 2022, with less than 100 biomethane facilities each, Denmark (5.6 TWh) and the Netherlands (2.6 TWh) have considerable production volumes, making these two countries, particularly Denmark, the owners of most of the industrial scale biomethane production units in Europe.
Germany continues to be the leading producer of biomethane injection, with approximately 13 TWh/year, followed by the United Kingdom and France, both with around 7 TWh/year. France, where production units are generally smaller than 40-30 GWh/year, with a few exceptions, has substantially increased its output within the last 7 years, from 82 GWh/year in 2015 to close to 7 TWh/year in 2022.
In the South of Europe, Italy and Spain have untapped potential to become large producers of biomethane. In Italy, many biogas plants are expected to be reconverting from producing electricity to upgrading to biomethane and according to the Italian Biogas Consortium CIB, the country could reach more than 60 TWh/year of produced biomethane by 2030. According to Gasnam, Spain’s association for renewable gas in transport, Spain has an estimated potential of biomethane of 162 TWh/year.
