Improving safety management of biogas in Europe
Résumé
The investment in the production of renewable energies is experiencing a great development in the world and in particular in Europe. The main drivers are at political, economical and strategic level, and they find their expression in the Renewable Energy Directive (Directive 2009/28/EC), the European Strategic Energy Technology Plan (SET-Plan), the Energy and Climate Change policy framework and in the Energy 2020 strategy, A strategy for competitive, sustainable and secure energy. The main objective of this development is to find alternative energies to replace the fossil energy dependence which is more sustainable and reduce CO2 emissions. Nevertheless, new energy produced by new technologies often generates new risks that have to be properly addressed to guarantee that the transition to a new energy mix with more renewable energy will be performed safely an reach a wide public acceptance. The production of biogas is positioned as energy which can not only generate a source of renewable energy but also which recycles waste. In the context of sustainable development, the place of biogas is therefore essential. Several questions about safety issues, the harmonization of the regulations and the need to develop standards are discussed in this paper, based on the results of the activities of a European Working Group on Biogas Safety and Regulation (EWGBSR) created in 2011. The risks corresponding to the biogas production and use have been framed using the method and tools resulting from the iNTeg-Risk project (www.integ-risk.eu-vri.eu). Several deficits have been identified and a strategy to improve risk management proposed by the EWGBSR. This paper presents the context of biogas in Europe and the strategy proposed by the European working group, covering technical aspects, regulatory and standardization aspects and organizational aspects such as learning from accidents and sharing experience.