Brussels, 3 February 2022 – Today, the Natural & bio Gas Vehicle Association (NGVA Europe) has released new data, proving rapid growth of biomethane as transport fuel in Europe.

With more than a quarter of the gas used in road transport being renewable, an overwhelming amount of Europe’s 3810 CNG stations already successfully delivered biomethane to European consumers in December 2020.

In 2020, the leading countries offering biomethane as a transport fuel were Denmark and Sweden, supplying shares of 100% and 95% biomethane at their 17 and 205 CNG stations respectively. They are followed by Norway with 63% (31 CNG stations), Germany with 60% (821 CNG stations), and Finland with 59% (48 CNG stations). Some countries’ biomethane share made a huge leap forward: for example coming from 9% in 2019, Italy’s 1392 stations already delivered 19% biomethane in 2020.

Today in 2022, European gas refuelling infrastructure network consists of more than 4110 CNG and 499 LNG stations for which a significantly higher amount of available biomethane is already available then in 2020. This includes vast amounts of bioLNG. For this, sustainable production pathways based on Circular Economy are largely available.

The European Commission estimates that there will be at least 44 bcm / 467 TWh of biogas and biomethane available in 2030[1], and Gas for Climate estimates 95 bcm / 1020 TWh for 2050[2]. From today’s production of 22 TWh renewable gas, Europe has a potential of 1200 TWh. Out of this, 117 TWh renewable gas will be distributed as transport fuel (bioCNG and bioLNG), which represents 40% of the overall fleet consumption in 2030[3].

Current natural gas infrastructure and vehicles are fully compatible with renewable biomethane and are therefore potent enablers of a carbon-free mobility at low system cost, even in the heavy duty long-haul sector, where bioLNG is a rapidly growing reality.

“These impressive numbers prove that biomethane is a rapidly growing reality, able to support the transition to climate neutrality and the objectives of European Green Deal in a very effective, efficient and especially realistic way – already today. European legislation must acknowledge this fact and support vehicle technologies, using biomethane as a transport fuel by assessing emissions not only at the tailpipe. For example with a Crediting System for Low-Carbon Fuels”, NGVA Europe’s Secretary General Dr Jens Andersen commented.

The crediting system will be discussed at the 22 February webinar ‘Giving Credit where Credit is due'.