Can biomethane be the key to energy decarbonisation?

The Faculty of Law (Comillas ICADE) hosted the meeting "Biometano, el nuevo boom inversor en renovables", a conference organised by the Gonzalo Jimenez Blanco Observatory, ASHURST-ICADE and with the collaboration of the Repsol Foundation Chair in Energy Transition at Comillas ICAI.

The dean of the faculty, Abel Veiga, and the partner in commercial law and director of Energy Transition at Ashurst, Andrés Alfonso, were in charge of inaugurating the conference. In front of a large audience, the dean reminded the audience that reflection and debate are part of the essence of the university. "It is very important to bring in frontier issues, current affairs, and to deal with them in a cross-cutting manner. Today we will talk about biomethane, taking into account what it means from an investment and energy point of view, but also from a legal point of view. These approaches are moving us forward. For his part, Andrés Alfonso acknowledged that the investment focus has shifted towards biomethane. "We will try to identify challenges and opportunities from various points of view," he mentioned.

This was followed by a round table discussion with the participation of the banking and financial law partner and head of Global Markets España at Ashurst, Irian Martínez; the commercial law partner and head of Energy Transition at Ashurst, Andrés Alfonso; the CFO of Verdalia Bioenergy, Antonio España; the Director of Energy and Infrastructures at Iberia from ING, David Mesía; the President of Heygaz, Fernando Sarasola, and the Director of the Repsol Foundation Chair of Energy Transition and lecturer at Comillas ICAI, José Ignacio Linares.

All of them agreed on the firm commitment to biomethane as a 100% green biofuel obtained from animal and vegetable waste, which can be injected directly into the natural gas network, generate electricity through engines and be used as fuel, and which can play a key role in the decarbonisation of energy.