GRTgaz owns and operates the longest high-pressure natural gas transmission network in Europe and is an important stakeholder in the biomethane sector in France. Biomethane is a developing sector in France and will be an important part of the energy transition in the near future. End of 2017, 44 sites were injecting biomethane into the natural gas grid in France and the roadmap for developing biomethane in France is very ambitious: between 500 and 1400 biomethane stations by 2030 according to an ADEME (French environment and energy management agency) study. After production of biogas, this raw gas is upgraded to obtain biomethane, which is then injected into distribution and transmission networks. One of the critical points in the chain is the monitoring of the quality compliance of biomethane before being injected into the network. Few solutions are currently available on the market to meet the industry's needs. It is thus important to identify best costs solutions that can meet the needs of the industry: required technical performance for low costs for both the solution and associated maintenance. In June 2016, RICE (Research Innovation Center for Energy of GRTGaz) which has a solid experience and a deep knowledge of sampling and analysis techniques, issued a call for projects to boost the biomethane analysis sector, to identify innovative solutions and to support their development, based on the needs of the biomethane sector and the network operators. The call for projects was launched through an Open Innovation concept. Over 14 submissions from startups, SMEs and research centers from around the world (7 countries from 3 continents), RICE selected 4 winners: Orbital, Blue Industry and Sciences, TNO and GMACX As a result, in 2017, the 4 winners had access to RICE's laboratories and gases to tests their solutions, as well as help from RICE in determining the gaps with respect to the technical requirements which was useful to help them progress on the development of their solutions.
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