The Department of Climate Action launches the Biogas Plan of Catalonia 2023-2030 with an initial investment of 25 million euros

The Minister for Climate Action, Food and Rural Agenda, Teresa Jordà i Roura, has announced in the framework of the second BIT Congress, which is being held in Vic, that the Department will start this year the Biogas Plan of Catalonia 2023-2030, with an initial investment of 25 million euros. The objective is to valorize livestock droppings and organic waste to obtain biogas and use it for the generation of heat, electricity or biomethane, and biofertilizers. The measure is part of Catalonia's transition towards a new, cleaner, sustainable, democratic and fair energy model, which aims to achieve climate neutrality by 2050.

Councilor Jordà has stated that the Plan will be a tool with effects in the energy, environmental, economic and social spheres. "The production of biogas allows us to wedge the energy transition in the primary sector, but it also opens a window of competitiveness for the livestock sector and provides us with instruments to continue increasing environmental protection", explained Jordà. "All this gives us more elements to increase territorial cohesion", he added. In addition to generating energy of renewable origin for thermal or electrical uses, the production of biogas makes it possible to improve the management of livestock droppings, take advantage of the fertilizing power of the digestate, reduce the emissions of gases that cause the greenhouse effect, energize the 'economy in rural areas, move towards a circular economy, and facilitate the creation of energy communities or joint management of organic waste, among other impacts.

The Plan will start from an estimate of the available biogas generation potential in Catalonia which is 3.3 TWh per year (equivalent to 13% of natural gas consumption today), adding the utilization of livestock excrement, the organic fraction of municipal waste, sludge from sewage treatment plants and agro-industrial waste. To take advantage of this potential, regulatory, economic and social measures will be proposed to overcome the various barriers that have already been identified and that are currently holding back the development of the sector. In Catalonia, biogas production currently amounts to 0.6 TWh per year.

Immediate measures to achieve the goals by 2030

The launch of the Plan this 2023 will focus on two major aspects. On the one hand, this year the Department will allocate 25 million euros to two lines of aid. One will be aimed at promoting new biogas installations on livestock farms, digestate treatment facilities produced on farms or covering ponds using the biogas generated (rural digesters), covering up to 80% of the investment . The other will have the purpose of facilitating the transformation of this biogas into biomethane, from the existing plants, as well as the connection of the plants that generate biomethane to the gas distribution network, so that they can evacuate and sell it and, of this way, take ground to fossil gas.

On the other hand, work will also begin on the administrative simplification for the processing of this type of facilities, in order to speed up the procedure and reduce the deadlines. Improving communication with promoters or carrying out some of the procedures in parallel are some of the measures planned to facilitate new biogas production facilities.

The aim will be to establish the foundations to achieve the goal of generating 1.1 TWh/year of biogas in 2030. To achieve this, it is estimated that it will be necessary to promote the creation of 90 plants for the generation and utilization of biogas, and for this purpose aid will be made available for new production plants, for expansions of existing ones or, among others, for those that include the treatment of livestock excrement. These grants can range between 15 and 25% of the investment cost.

The Biogas Plan of Catalonia 2023-2030 is being drawn up in a transversal way between the different general directions of the Department involved in the energy, environmental and agriculture and livestock fields, and is inserted in the framework of the green transformation, the energy transition and the achievement of Catalonia's climate neutrality in the horizon of the year 2050.