State of the biogas industry in 12 countries: review of the report by IEA Bioenergy

At the end of last year, IEA Bioenergy developed a report on biogas and biomethane production, the use of biogas and other anaerobic digestion products, political and financial conditions, as well as innovative projects in the member countries of the International Energy Agency (IEA): Brazil, Canada, China, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom.

Important aspects of the report

Number of plants

China has the highest number of biogas plants among the reporting IEA Bioenergy Task 37 member countries, with more than 100,000 biogas plants, followed by Germany with over 10,000 and France with over 1,600 plants. Of the other reporting countries, Brazil has more than 800 biogas plants, UK has over 700 and the others have less than 500. With the exception of China, these are total numbers and include digesters of all sizes and technical configurations.

Biogas production

Germany has the highest annual biogas production, around 87 TWh/y. China produces around 81 TWh per year, UK 32 TWh, France 25 TWh, Brazil 12 TWh and Denmark 7 TWh. The other reporting countries produce less than 3 TWh.

Types of plants

In Finland, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland and Canada, both wastewater treatment plants (WWTP) and plants based on mixed bio-waste play a more substantial role in biogas production than in other reporting countries. Agricultural plants constitute the majority of the biogas produced in China, Denmark, France and Germany. Landfilling of organic waste is being phased out in many countries, but landfill gas continues to be produced for many years and is the largest source of biogas in Brazil, Ireland and Canada.

Upgrading to biomethane

Only half of the countries provided up-to-date data, but membrane technology is the most common. With 364 upgraders, France also has the highest number of upgrading plants among the reporting countries.

Use of biogas

Electricity and heat generation are the most common uses of biogas in Germany, Brazil, Canada, France and Finland. In Denmark and Switzerland, a large share of the produced biogas is upgraded into biomethane and injected into the gas grid. Sweden and Finland also have notable shares of biomethane production, but there it is mainly used as vehicle fuel, either as compressed (bio-CNG) or liquefied (bioLNG) gas. Industrial use is relatively common in France, Norway and Brazil.

Policy frameworks and financial conditions

The conditions for biogas development depend on each country’s energy and industrial infrastructure and its objectives related to clean energy, climate change and waste management. Subsidizing electricity production from biogas through feed-in-tariffs has served as a common starting point in many European countries and North America, and is still the predominant support system in Brazil. Although biogas is used for heat, especially in WWTP and industrial biogas plants, only Ireland and France noted programs that support AD for heat production.

The UK has recently closed its Renewable Heat Incentive program. In recent years, in most European countries, Brazil and North America, the focus of biogas support has been shifting towards biomethane production for grid injection or for use as vehicle fuel. Sweden, Norway and Finland use tax exemptions for biogas use and investment support for new biogas plants as their main financial instruments. Many European countries have incentives for producing biogas from manure to mitigate agricultural methane emissions, and China has supported numerous AD demonstration projects for different types of manure.

Technical progress and innovation

There is a lot of promising technical progress and innovation in the biogas sector, with projects from food grade CO₂ production to sustainable aviation fuel. In particular, there are many examples of projects aiming to exploit the biogas potential in lignocellulosic biomass, to increase the conversion of CO2 via methanation and power-to-gas, as well as projects that are investigating greater use of straw and intermediate crops in AD. Along with innovative system integration projects, these examples reflect growing momentum in this space, and increased societal relevance for the biogas sector in the future.

Download the full report by IEA Bioenergy (in English)

In this article, we did not focus on analyzing individual countries, but in the future we plan to prepare reviews dividing 12 countries into four groups:

1. Countries outside Europe: Brazil, Canada, China;
2. Nordic countries: Finland, Norway, Sweden (except Denmark, a review of which is already available at: https://saf.org.ua/news/2174/;
3. EU member states: France, Germany, Ireland;
4. Non-EU countries: United Kingdom, Switzerland.

Producing and using biogas through anaerobic digestion (AD) is a unique way of addressing multiple sustainability issues at the same time, including renewable energy production, waste management, climate change mitigation, and sustainable agriculture. In addition, AD by-products can have additional positive effects. Digestate — the liquid or semi-solid residue after processing the raw material — retains undecomposed carbon and almost all the nutrients of the original raw material and can be used as a soil fertilizer.

Source: IEA Bioenergy.