Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
buses will dominate the market, as is the case in countries such as Spain,
Sweden, France and Turkey. Higher utilization of the refueling infra-
structure in dedicated bus depots, together with the needs of urban areas to
decrease local air pollution from transport, are the main reasons why this
market sector tends to crop up as a prime mover in the emerging NGV
market situation in the European context.
The last decade turned the NGV market into a growth business. Between
2001 and 2007, annual world growth was 26%, increasing from 1.7 million
vehicles to 7 million. From 2007 to 2011, annual growth decreased slightly
to 20%, with the total number of vehicles at the end of 2011 standing at
14.5 million. A conservative estimate of 18% annual growth would mean
that the world NGV market would reach 65 million vehicles in 2020, which
is a goal set by the International Association of NGVs (www.iangv.org,
www.ngvglobal.com). This would correspond to a 9% vehicle market share,
and a market of 400 billion cubic meters per year would correspond to
12.5% of the 2010 natural gas market (www.iangv.org, www.ngvglobal.
com).
Biomethane is still playing a marginal role in this growth, but increasing
interest is evident; demonstration projects have been set up all over the
world, including India, Canada, Thailand, Estonia, China, New Zealand,
South Korea, South Africa and Brazil. More mature market introduction of
biomethane as a drop-in fuel in the existing NGV market is mostly Europe
based, with one exception in the USA, where one third of the refuse truck
operation of the 1000 NGVs of the company Waste Management is
powered by biomethane from the Altamont landfill in California (roughly
corresponding to 100GWh). Sweden is at the forefront, both in relative and
absolute terms, with its 60% share of biomethane in a 1.2 TWh market. The
total share of biomethane at a world level is still erratically reported, leading
to a very rough world estimate of 1-3 TWh per year. European statistics for
2011 from NGVA Europe (www.ngvaeurope.eu) places Sweden at the top
(726GWh) with the other European countries amassing roughly a third of
that; the second major player in Germany, with a blending rate of 21%
(183GWh). However, countries such as the UK, Holland, Spain and
Austria - known to be using biomethane - have not reported any figures.
18.5
Future trends
The future of biomethane looks bright, especially when derived from waste.
All over the world the vast amounts of biowaste coupled with increasing
needs for climate change mitigation, local air pollution control and oil
dependency abatement give rise to a waste management solution through
biomethane production. This is especially pronounced in countries where
local or regional governments are in charge of both waste management and
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