Biomethane is “a strategic asset for Europe’s energy security” and is playing a key role in decarbonising heavy-duty transport and hard-to-abate industrial sectors. This was highlighted European Commissioner for Energy Dan Jørgensen during European Biomethane Week, an event organised at the initiative of the EBA that brought together companies, policymakers, scientific institutions, investors and technology providers from the renewable gas sector in Brussels.
In his address, Jørgensen emphasised the importance of an energy strategy that places both the European Union’s energy independence and action to combat climate change at its heart. He noted that “renewables play a significant role in the energy transition, and biogas and biomethane are part of these solutions”.
Turning this potential into investment and production requires a clear and efficient regulatory framework, stressed EBA President Piero Gattoni: “We are not asking for special privileges, but for rules that enable European biomethane to realise its full potential. We can build an energy system that is cleaner, more secure, more competitive”. How? Gattoni identified the key priorities: clear, proportionate and workable sustainability rules; strengthening the circular economy; recognising biomethane within European industrial and energy security strategies; and ensuring technological neutrality in the decarbonisation of heavy-duty transport.
The concepts of the circular economy and technological neutrality are certainly familiar to us at Gruppo Maganetti. For years, our own fleet has consisted entirely of biomethane-powered trucks, running on bio-LNG produced by Cooperativa Speranza using livestock manure and crop residues.
Bio-LNG is currently the most effective solution for reducing emissions from our operations, but we don’t stop at that: in partnership with Levissima, we have also put an electric truck on the road, and we are closely monitoring all technological developments in the sector, including hydrogen and other emerging solutions.
