The La Galera biomethane plant, the first in Catalonia, already injects and distributes its production through the Enagás transmission network. It has begun to do so this week, after unraveling the bureaucratic obstacles that for three years have prevented it from connecting the facilities with the nearby transport gas pipeline.
With the legal vacuum resolved and fourteen years after initiating the project, the company Biometagás la Galera already markets biomethane as green energy, which is generated from food, agricultural, livestock and organic waste.
The technical manager of the state gas system, Enagás, has been in charge of executing the works on the branch, approximately one kilometer long, which connects the plant with the transport gas pipeline as it passes through the same municipal area of La Galera. Once the work was completed and the trial period, which has lasted for the last three months, has been completed, the company has been able to start up the biomethane plant at 40% of its capacity.
In a period of between five and six months, its managers calculate, it will be able to operate at full capacity, generating around 40 GW/h per year of renewable energy.
During the impasse of give and take with the administrations, the biogas that began to produce since August 2002 was burned, without the possibility of use, by the torch of the facilities. This also deprived the company of income between 2.5 and 3 million euros per year.
In fact, the project seriously faltered at the moment when the central government and the Generalitat began to pass the buck to each other in response to the request for permits for Enagás to start building the branch. The jurisdictional discussion had to determine who could authorize, under conditions of environmental and industrial safety, the connection of a plant that produces renewable gas to a high-pressure transport pipeline of the general network. From everything, the verification of a legal vacuum emerged: nobody had thought about it until that moment.
“We have had to cry a lot. Until now there was no law that protected the connection in the transport network and nobody knew why. After several questions in the administration, we tried to lobby Enagás and the administration itself to be able to develop this transport law”, said the manager of Biometagás la Galera, Albert Martínez. Alternatively, the possibility of transporting the gas in trucks to a nearby connection point of the distribution network was put on the table.
The solution to modify the Hydrocarbons Law, recognizing as a direct line the connection of a biomethane plant with the transport network, ended up unraveling the permits to build the branch almost a year ago. With the operation, the company has also been able to start up the biomethane plant, purifying the biogas initially obtained.
The project has involved an investment of 5.5 million euros, to which must be added the 1.2 that Biometagás has paid to build the connection branch. The society is made up of 39 partners, mostly agricultural cooperatives, producers and ranchers in the territory.
The plant has the capacity to receive and manage about 100 tons per day of expired food products, plant residues from agriculture, livestock manure or organic material that are converted through a fermentation process produced by biogas bacteria.
This product is subsequently refined to obtain the cleanest biomethane. "It is exactly the same molecule as natural gas, but this one has the green certification," says Martínez. A system of certification of the renewable origin of the gas means that, once it is injected into the transport network, it can be sold everywhere. The marketing companies, in fact, are dedicated to selling consumption certificates for the renewable gas produced.
Currently, according to Martínez, its cost is close to 50% higher than that of conventional gas, an added value that the buyer pays as it is an energy recognized as clean in order to prove that no emissions are generated with its use.
This has made the production of the Galera plant widely accepted, especially among the industry in north-central Europe. A year ago, when the works on the branch had not yet begun, Biometagás had already closed an agreement to place its production in the hands of a Spanish trading company, Molgas, which distributes consumption certificates in Europe through Dutch brokers in the sector.
The possibility of giving exit to the same territory, in Catalonia, are limited, according to what the company recognizes. “There are no regulations in Spain that penalize pollution. I would like production to remain in the territory, but here they do not pay for it as they should for being green gas. European companies, on the other hand, have certified the use of gas of green origin", explained Martínez.
