By Julia Dahm | EURACTIV.com

10-10-2022 (updated: 10-10-2022 )

Germany has almost 9,800 biogas plants, according to the industry’s newly presented data, out of 20,000 plants EU-wide. [SHUTTERSTOCK]

Print Email Facebook Twitter LinkedIn WhatsApp Telegram

Despite high demand for biogas, few new production facilities have been built in Germany, according to the country’s biogas industry which cites legal barriers. Campaigners, however, warn against deregulating production.

“The importance of biogas as a flexible, reliable and universally applicable renewable energy source is particularly evident in the current crisis,” said the president of the German Biogas Association, Horst Seide, during a presentation of the industry’s 2022 data report on Thursday (6 September).

At the EU level, the European Commission doubled its objective for home-grown biomethane production from agricultural waste with its €300 billion REPowerEU plan to boost independence from Russian fossil fuels by 2027, launched in March following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

In theory, Germany should play an important role in such efforts: The country has almost 9,800 biogas plants out of 20,000 EU-wide, according to the industry’s newly presented data.

But despite the EU-wide demand for biogas as an alternative to Russian fossil fuels, Seide called the industry’s development this year “not exactly thrilling,” with the number of plants and their total production capacity barely growing this year compared to last, according to the association’s projection. 

From the industry’s view, the willingness to invest in the sector has been dampened by “excessive legal requirements” as well as insecurities provoked by geopolitical instability.

While the industry is eager to “adapt to recent developments,” Seide stressed, the long waits for obtaining building permits makes it hard to predict whether an investment will make sense.

“If you tell me now that I can finish something in two years, I cannot know what market situation, what political framework there will be at that time,” he explained, adding this situation currently frustrates many in the industry.

Lawmakers, on their part, are trying to address the situation. At the end of last week, the German parliament’s climate and energy committee adopted its position on the ongoing revision of the country’s energy security law.

With the proposed amendments, “barriers to a short-term increase of biogas production are being eliminated,” the governing Social Democrat’s parliamentary group stressed in a statement.

This includes relaxations of construction law relevant to biogas plants and making subsidies for plants using manure for biogas production more accessible.

Moreover, the lawmakers foresee a temporary suspension of the cap on biogas production. The lawmakers estimate that this should enable producers to quickly ramp up production by 20%.

The European Commission has doubled its objective for home-grown biomethane production to 35 billion cubic metres per year by 2030 as part of efforts to bolster the bloc against a looming energy crisis, according to a new communication.

This gives “farmers the opportunity to exploit their full potential and contribute to our country’s energy security,” the rapporteur for the file, Social Democrat Johannes Schätzl, stressed.

Green agriculture minister Cem Özdemir has also stressed in the past that biogas production can contribute not only to green heating in rural areas but also to strengthening farmers’ and rural areas’ income.

However, campaigners are less convinced that deregulating biogas production is the way to go and caution that biogas production must not divert resources, such as land or biomass, away from food production and should be restricted to residual materials that are produced anyway and do not take up additional land.

While temporarily suspending the cap on biogas production can be a “pragmatic” step against the backdrop of the current gas crisis, “it is important not to deregulate this for the future,” Johann Rathke, agriculture and land use campaigner at WWF Germany, told EURACTIV.

Otherwise, he added, there would be a risk of farmers focusing too heavily on the production of energy crops, which could result in the development of monocultures and crowd out food production.

The new sector data presented by the German Biogas Association shows that a total of more than 1.3 million hectares of land were used to produce biomass for biogas production in 2021, the vast majority of which was taken up by maize.

According to the Federal Statistics Agency, this is compared to a total agricultural land of 16.6 million hectares in 2021.

Bioenergy and German farmers’ associations have criticised the country’s renewable energy act (EEG) amendment passed in the Bundestag on Thursday (7 July) on the grounds that it does not provide sufficient support for biogas.

[Edited by Natasha Foote/Nathalie Weatherald]

Print Email Facebook Twitter LinkedIn WhatsApp Telegram