Country Report Summary 2019

IEA Bioenergy Task 37 – Country Reports Summaries 2019

Spring 2020

Summary

The biogas production in the IEA Bioenergy Task 37-member countries is clearly dominated by Germany with more than 10,000 biogas plants, followed by UK with nearly 1,000 plants. None of the other member countries have more than 700 biogas plants (Figure 2.1). Austria and Canada have not reported their biogas production per feedstock, but present a total number of biogas plants.

The annual biogas production is around 120 TWh in Germany, 25 TWh in the UK2 , 9 TWh in France, 5 TWh in Brazil, and around 4 TWh in Denmark and the Netherlands. The remaining countries show production rates of less than 3 TWh (see Figure 17.2). In countries like Australia and UK, the biogas produced in landfills is the largest source, while landfill gas is only a minor contributor in countries like Germany, Switzerland and Denmark, indicating the low level of landfilling of organic waste material. The actual biogas production is not reported in all countries; thus in some cases in this report it has been calculated, based mostly on the heat and electricity production with an assumed efficiency of 35%. In other cases, it has not been possible to get a good estimate of the indigenous biogas production.

The biogas produced is in most countries mainly used for generation of heat and electricity, except for Sweden where more than half of the produced biogas is used as vehicle fuel. Germany is second in absolute numbers in terms of biogas as a transport fuel. Many other countries, such as France, The Netherlands, Denmark and South Korea, have emerging markets for biomethane as a fuel for road transports.

The amount of biomethane produced and the number of biogas upgrading plants is increasing. In Figure 2.3 the distribution of the 577 biogas upgrading plants among the IEA Bioenergy Task 37-member countries is shown; the technologies used are indicated in Figure 2.4.

Germany and Sweden have had the largest markets for biomethane in recent years, but a growing interest is seen in other countries as well. UK has now taken over the second position from Sweden, using more and more biomethane for heat and electricity production. France and Switzerland are examples of other countries with significant growth.

Financial support systems are very different from country to country. Various systems with feed-in tariffs, investment grants and tax exemptions exist. A clear correlation between the financial support system and the way biogas is utilised is evident in the Task 37 member countries. In countries like the UK, Germany and Austria, feed-in tariffs for electricity have led to most of the biogas being used to produce electricity, while the system with tax exemption in Sweden favours utilisation of the biogas (biomethane) as a vehicle fuel. In several countries, including France, Denmark, Sweden and the UK, financial support systems have led to an increased share of biogas in the gas grids.