Development of sustainable heat markets for biogas plants in Europe (BIOGASHEAT)

In many European countries the production and use of biogas is increasingly recognised as a sustainable energy option. Great developments were achieved in several countries for the installation of agricultural biogas plants, most of which produce electricity in CHP plants. However, in many cases the heat from the CHP plant is wasted. This causes macro and microeconomic losses and challenges in an overall increasing land use competition. The BiogasHeat project addressed the problem of efficient usage of biogas plants' heat. Thereby a set of different policy, best practice, field tests and project implementation measures have been developed. New and existing plants in emerging European biogas markets were targeted and concrete solutions to efficiently use the heat were proposed and demonstrated. The project built on a framework and market analysis on the use of biogas heat, developing promising business models and entrepreneurial strategies for the use and recovery of biogas heat. These models and strategies were field tested in cooperation with relevant key actors, like farmers, biogas operators, municipalities and district heating companies.