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 the state of the biogas sector 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. For the SAF platform, we have prepared an overview of the important aspects of this 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.
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.
Read the full material with more information about the types of plants, political and financial conditions, as well as innovations on the SAF platform.
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