Crucial milestone reached towards single European biomethane market

Europe is ‘one step closer’ to a single biomethane market, following the submission to the European Commission of an application for an administrative system designed to facilitate cross-border transactions of renewable gases.

Members of the European Renewable Gas Registry announced on 15 December that they’d applied to the European Commission to recognise the ERGaR RED (European Renewable Gas Registry Renewable Energy Directive) scheme as a voluntary scheme under the Renewable Energy Directive.

Established under Belgian law in 2016, ERGaR is an international non-profit organisation between European biomethane registries that aims to enable the cross border transfer of the renewable gas among its members. At present, ten countries are included in the registry.

National renewable gas registries included in the scheme collaborated to establish an ‘independent, transparent and trustworthy’ documentation scheme for cross border transfer and mass balancing of renewable gas injected into the European natural gas network. According to a statement, ERGaR will support the establishment of such registries in every European country and strive to incorporate all national registries into the scheme.

The European Union’s Renewable Energy Directive establishes an overall policy for the production and promotion of energy from renewable sources. A key obligation of the Directive is for the EU to fulfil at least 20% of its total energy needs with renewables by 2020.