Biomether | Biomethane Emilia-Romagna regional system

Biomether aims at boosting the biomethane value chain in Emilia-Romagna. The project, financed by the EU LIFE+ Program and co-financed by the Emilia-Romagna Region, will realize two demonstration plants for biomethane production for direct grid injection. These demonstration plants will act as foot-in-the-door for the development of the biomethane value chain in the region. Biomethane is a gas consisting of mostly methane and produced by renewable sources by anaerobic digestion or gasification. It is obtained from the treatment (or upgrading) of biogas until it reaches the qualities of natural gas.

Biogas upgrading to biomethane offers a number of advantages which can compensate the effort of the additional treatment: Substitution of fossil energy sources with renewable energy sources complying with the EU 2020 goals Use as non-fossil fuel contributing to reach the 10% share of biofuels Savings on logistic thanks to the widespread natural gas grid Possibilities of integration with other (intermittent and not programmable) renewable energy sources such as photovoltaic. In Emilia-Romagna, the availability of waste biomass is very high (more than 16,000,000 t/year, CRPA, 2011), the natural gas grid is widespread, and an industrial excellence is present in the field of components for natural gas fuelling station. In the region, thus, the potential for the development of a biomethane is high.

Results

Adjustment and optimization of biogas upgrading technologies based on membranes for landfill biogas and for municipal sewage sludge biogas
Construction and operation of two demonstration plants for biomethane production for direct injection in the natural gas grid and for transport use
Evaluation of biomass waste availability in the region as for agricultural and agroindustrial by-products, waste and organic waste, as well as of the overall methanogenic potential in the region
Realization of guidelines supporting the regional administration in the design of regional policies fostering biomethane value chain development
Quantification of the impacts of biomethane production through the monitoring of biomass source characteristics, process efficiency, produced energy, avoided CO2 emissions, with an LCA based approach to develop regional criteria for the sustainability of the biomethane value chain.

In numbers, in about two years of demonstration plants operation: