Floene, S.A.
Floene
O grupo Floene é o maior operador de distribuição de gás (ORD) em Portugal, através da participação e gestão direta de 9 ORDs, presentes em 106 concelhos de norte a sul do país.
ID: 205215521290-52
Lobbying Activity
Meeting with Paulo Cunha (Member of the European Parliament)
5 Nov 2025 · Biomethane and energy
Meeting with Paulo Cunha (Member of the European Parliament) and Gas Distributors for Sustainability and Confederação dos Agricultores de Portugal
4 Nov 2025 · Unlocking Biomethane: A Successful Partnership Between Farmers and Energy Players - event co-hosted by me
Meeting with Joaquim Nunes De Almeida (Director Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs)
27 Oct 2025 · Energy policy
Response to Heating and cooling strategy
9 Oct 2025
Floene Energias' response to the Call for Evidence on the Heating and Cooling Strategy is provided in the document attached.
Read full responseResponse to European Climate Law amendment
15 Sept 2025
Floene welcomes the opportunity to respond to the European Commission's (EC) public consultation on the Union-wide binding climate target of a 90% net reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2040, relative to 1990 levels. As Portugal's leading gas distribution group, Floene serves over 1.1 million consumption points - residential, commercial, and industrial - covering 72% of the national market. We are committed to the energy transition and support the EU's long-term objective of climate neutrality by 2050. The 2040 target is ambitious and will require the mobilisation of all available energy vectors, working in complement rather than in competition. Achieving this objective requires that the role of renewable gases be clearly and unequivocally recognised as a central component of the decarbonisation strategy. 1-The 2040 target must be accompanied by a clear, stable, and realistic pathway that provides: regulatory stability for long-term planning, predictable signals for investment, and equal support for all viable decarbonisation options and vectors. Introducing additional intermediate targets, coupled with potential revisions to recently adopted EU legislation, risks creating regulatory uncertainty. It is particularly critical at a time when the EC is rightly seeking to reduce administrative burdens and enhance Europe's competitiveness. To mobilise the significant investments needed for decarbonisation and infrastructure transformation, long-term stability, clarity, and predictability in the regulatory framework are essential. 2- Gas DSOs are key enablers of the transition. They uniquely connect thousands of decentralised renewable gas producers to the energy system and deliver clean gases to millions of households and businesses. Both electrons and molecules will be required. Renewable gases, such as biomethane, renewable hydrogen, and synthetic methane, must be recognised alongside electrification as essential, complementary energy vectors that enhance cost-effectiveness, security of supply, and social acceptance. Biomethane is already a proven, scalable solution capable of reducing emissions today. Hydrogen and synthetic gases will be critical to decarbonise industry, heavy-duty transport, and other hard-to-electrify sectors. Gas-based solutions can also deliver immediate, cost-effective emissions reductions in Europe's existing building stock. In Portugal, Floenes' network is already prepared to distribute renewable gases, including biomethane and, in the future, hydrogen, showcasing how DSOs can turn EU ambition into concrete national action. To fully unlock this potential, the EU's policy framework should: -Ensure renewable gases are systematically integrated into EU and national strategies, with clear and measurable commitments such as injection and blending targets. -Avoid premature dismantling of gas networks, which are critical assets. Repurposed grids will be essential to scale renewable gases, enable system flexibility, and meet peak demand. -Recognise the strategic role of gas infrastructure in decarbonising industry, transport, and seasonal heating. -Promote integrated and flexible infrastructure planning, ensuring renewable molecules and repurposed grids are recognised alongside electricity in TYNDP. -Create a stable European market framework for renewable gases, enabling long-term contracts, open market access, and de-risked investment conditions. Floene stands ready to support the Commission in building a complementary, technologically diverse, and investment-friendly transition. By embedding renewable gases and gas infrastructure into the 2040 climate framework, Europe can ensure a resilient, cost-effective, and socially inclusive pathway to climate neutrality.
Read full responseResponse to Citizens energy package – protecting and empowering consumers in the just transition
9 Sept 2025
The energy transition is one of Europe's most significant structural challenges. Achieving carbon neutrality requires innovation, investment, and regulatory clarity, but also a careful balance between climate ambition, affordability, and social justice. Success depends on ensuring that no citizen, household, or community is left behind, while leveraging existing infrastructures to minimise costs and maximise resilience. Floene Energias, Portugal's leading gas distribution group, serves over 1.1 million consumption points, residential, commercial, and industrial, representing approximately 72% of the national market. With one of the most modern and efficient networks in Europe, Floene plays a central role in adapting gas infrastructures for renewable gases such as biomethane and hydrogen, enabling cost-efficient decarbonisation while ensuring energy security and consumer choice. A just transition must prioritise protecting vulnerable and energy-poor households. These groups often lack the means to invest in efficiency or renewable solutions, making affordability the decisive factor. Policies should therefore adopt harmonised criteria to identify vulnerable households and deliver targeted support through vouchers, subsidies, or tax rebates. Broad untargeted measures risk inefficiency, while high and volatile energy prices continue to affect the most exposed households disproportionately. Energy poverty also reflects barriers beyond affordability, including a lack of information and complex procedures that limit access to existing schemes. Strengthening energy literacy is vital, especially in Portugal, where 70% of households report difficulty understanding their electricity bills. Transparent billing, simple comparison tools, and consumer-friendly offers are crucial for empowering citizens and supporting informed decisions. Three areas of action are key at the EU level. First, promoting cost-efficient decarbonisation by leveraging existing gas infrastructures, keeping system costs low, and preserving consumer choice. Second, ensuring resilience through technological diversity: renewable gases provide essential flexibility and dispatchable capacity in renewables-based markets, complementing electrification and preventing over-reliance on a single pathway and third, fostering inclusive governance that engages local communities and vulnerable groups, for example, through decentralised biomethane projects that also generate jobs and strengthen regional economies. Biomethane plays a strategic role in the transition. The REPowerEU target of 35 bcm/year by 2030 could cover over 40% of gas use in buildings. Produced from organic waste, biomethane reduces import dependency, promotes the circular economy, and offers a complementary, affordable, and less disruptive pathway alongside electrification. Decarbonising Europe's building stock will require multiple solutions. Many buildings are old, inefficient, and technically unsuitable for full electrification. Renewable gases provide an effective alternative through renewable-ready appliances and hybrid systems such as heat pumps combined with gas boilers or micro-cogeneration. EU and national frameworks must therefore uphold technological neutrality, avoid prescriptive approaches, and recognise that boilers capable of running on renewable gases are not fossil fuel technologies. To deliver this, regulatory tools are needed. Green contracts, renewable gas tariffs, and certification schemes can strengthen consumer trust and accelerate deployment. Simplifying permitting procedures for biomethane plants is equally essential to scale up production and meet EU and national targets. Policy design must also respect national contexts. In Portugal, an old and inefficient building stock necessitates tailored approaches that strike a balance between affordability and decarbonisation goals. Floene reaffirms its commitment to enabling a sustainable, inclusive transition.
Read full responseResponse to Industrial Decarbonisation Accelerator Act
8 Jul 2025
Floene Energias S.A. welcomes the opportunity to contribute to this consultation. Recognising that the European Commission aims to boost sustainable and resilient industrial production in Europe, we believe the regulatory framework set by the Industrial Decarbonisation Accelerator Act (IDAA) must be pragmatic, inclusive, and market-driven. Floene is the leading gas distribution group in Portugal, serving over 1.1 million consumption points - residential, commercial, and industrial - representing about 72% of the national market. Our network is among the most modern and efficient in Europe, ensuring a safe, reliable, high-quality energy supply. Floene thus holds a central position in the Portuguese energy transition, uniquely positioned to accelerate the decarbonisation of consumers by facilitating the distribution of renewable gases, such as hydrogen and biomethane. We connect a robust industrial base that is proactively steering towards decarbonisation. However, this momentum depends on enabling conditions that the IDAA must ensure to support competitive industrial decarbonisation. To achieve its objectives, the IDAA must guarantee a balanced decarbonisation pathway rooted in a technology-neutral approach. Effective decarbonisation will require combined strategies that leverage each Member States strengths. While Member States differ, certain measures must be harmonised EU-wide, and we recognise the IDAAs key role. In Portugal, energy-intensive sectors such as paper, ceramics, cement, and glass are exploring pathways to decarbonise. For processes, where electrification is not feasible either for technical or economic reasons-, these industries are seeking to transition from natural gas to green molecules, such as biomethane and green hydrogen. To keep this from becoming prohibitively costly or undermining competitiveness, IDAA must fully recognise the use of existing infrastructure to transport renewable gases. This enables rapid, cost-effective deployment of decarbonisation projects, minimises impacts, and avoids unnecessary disruptions. The strong momentum from the industry highlights the urgent need to scale up biomethane and hydrogen supply to meet this demand. Investors and producers require predictable, transparent, coherent regulatory frameworks. The IDAA must therefore set clear rules, leaving no room for divergent interpretations across the value chain, to accelerate biomethane and hydrogen markets. Delays in infrastructure approvals directly threaten Europes industrial transformation and climate targets. Accelerating permitting is thus imperative. In light of these considerations, Floene urges the IDAA to prioritise: 1- Recognising and prioritising renewable gases in industry, especially energy-intensive sectors. 2- Accelerating and simplifying permitting for biomethane and hydrogen, with clear processes to avoid delays and cost overruns. 3- Developing and protecting lead markets for renewable gases by supporting national blending obligations, demand-side incentives, and harmonised Guarantees of Origin. 4- Closing the competitiveness gap by providing financial and regulatory support for domestic renewable gas production, ensuring industrial decarbonisation while maintaining global competitiveness. 5- Leveraging existing infrastructure to minimise costs and accelerate the transition, with EU-wide harmonisation on injection and connection cost sharing and recognition of these costs in regulated tariffs. Floene stands ready to actively contribute to Portugals and Europes decarbonisation journey. Only by promoting the complementary use of electrons and molecules can we achieve a competitive, decarbonised, energy-independent European industry. An accompanying paper with concrete information on the Portuguese industry outlook and projects already underway, showing why these elements must be fully safeguarded within the IDAA, will complement our contribution to this consultation.
Read full responseMeeting with Bruno Gonçalves (Member of the European Parliament)
26 Mar 2025 · ITRE policies
Meeting with Maria da Graça Carvalho (Member of the European Parliament, Rapporteur)
9 Nov 2023 · European climate policies and legislation, decarbonization of consumption and clean transition, investments in Portuguese energy market
Response to Roadmap on REPowering the EU with Hydrogen Valleys
5 Sept 2023
Please find attached Floene Energias S.A. (Floene) contribution to this call for evidence.
Read full responseMeeting with Dominique Ristori (Director-General Energy) and Gas Distributors for Sustainability and
18 Feb 2019 · The role of gas DSOs in the context of European gas markets