Overview of biomethane markets and regulations ... - Green Gas Grids

Italy
Status quo- biogas plants and biomethane plants
There has been huge expansion in biogas operations in Italy in the recent past.
Caused by encouraging feed-in tariffs for electricity generated from biogas many
plants have been constructed and set into operation. There are more than
300 plants with agricultural background and around 200 plants operating on landfill
gas. The electricity generating capacity of all these plants is roughly 480 MW. It
must be stated that the development is exclusively related to electricity production
and that no biomethane project has been commissioned so far.
Political targets for biogas and biomethane production
According to Directive 2009/28/EC, in 2020, 17 % of Italy’s final energy
consumption must be covered by renewable sources [1]. Presuming final energy
consumption slightly decreases due to energy efficiency measures, this means that
in 2020 the final consumption of renewable energy must be 22.62 Mtoe. According
to the Italian NREAP, energy from biogas is planned to contribute to the targets for
2015 with an installed capacity of 545 MW that is expected to generate 2,397 GWh
as gross electricity production. These figures are planned to increase up to 750 MW
installed capacity and 3,200 GWh by 2020. However, the plan does not mention
any specific targets for biomethane production.
Figure 7: Italian gas transmission
grid (source www.eni.it)
Natural gas consumption,
suppliers, infrastructure
With its annual gas consumption of
close to 80 billion cubic metres,
Italy represents one the world’s
biggest market for natural gas.
Natural gas is essential to satisfy
Italy’s national energy demand and
today more than one third of the
electricity production is generated
from natural gas. Since national gas
resources are in decline, gas
imports are expected to increase
significantly in the future,
representing a challenge to the
existing gas infrastructure, and
several projects are underway in
order to expand gas import
capacity.
For Italy the most important natural
gas suppliers are Russia and Algeria
which together provide more than
50 % of the imported natural gas.
Residual gas comes from inland
resources (10 %) and gas imports
from Lybia (12 %), Norway (5 %)
and the Netherlands (5 %). The
transport system constitutes
pipeline systems and the two LNG terminals Panigaglia and Porto Viro.
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