„If we wanted to use the entire capacity of biogas plants at peak hours, e.g. 12 hours a day (in the morning and evening peak), we might be able to generate over 13 GW in controllable capacity that is available all the time, so the potential is huge,” says Prof., PhD. Eng. Jacek Dach, from the Poznań University of Life Sciences.
Due to the energy crisis we are forced to accelerate investments in renewable energy. Unfortunately, the Polish government still doesn’t regard onshore wind farms favorably, and in the future may limit the development of photovoltaics. However, biomass enjoys broad support from the government, and in particular from Sovereign Poland (governing coalition member – ed.). According to the government, in the coming years this sector will grow rapidly.
BinzesAlert.pl: According to Minister Kowalski, the national biomass potential is huge and ranges from 8 to 12 bcm of biogas and about 8 bcm of biomethane. What is the real potential of Poland when it comes to the production of energy from biomass? Aren’t these estimates too optimistic?
Prof. Jacek Dach: Minister Kowalski is most probably referring to calculations made by my team at the Poznań University of Life Sciences, and it’s true that we did conclude that biometane production potential is 8 bcm. These estimates are quite realistic, because they are based on very accurate calculations related to the availability of agro biomass, the amount of which in Poland reaches between 130 and 150 million tons, including manure to the tune of over 100 million tons per year.
This includes more than 20 million tons of slurry and several million tons of chicken droppings. We estimate that 8 million tons of grain straw (out of a total of more than 30 million produced) can also be used in biogas plants.
In addition, such facilities can process any other type of straw, such as lupine, rapeseed and corn straw. Corn straw is a great material for biogas plants, available in the amount of 5-6 million tons per year. In addition, there are also very large biomass resources from the food processing industry. It should also be emphasized that Polish modern biogas technologies are able to process virtually any type of biomass except wood and its waste.
Taking into account the entire national resource, introducing a technical availability factor and multiplying this huge mass by the efficiency of biogas technology, we can generate 6.7 GW of stable electrical power in the biogas sector.
I would like to point out that there is no other renewable energy source that operates completely independent of weather conditions, climate, time of day, than biogas plants.
Each such facility stores energy (in chemical form) in the form of accumulated biogas. If we wanted to use this power in peak biogas plants operating, for example, 12 hours a day (in the morning and evening peak), then we can get more than 13 GW of controllable power available all the time, so the potential is huge.
How do you regard the government’s plans in this regard?
This area is more focused on the role of state-owned energy companies and private businesses. A few years ago PGNiG was planning to produce about 4 bcm of biomethane by 2030, but that target was reduced to about 1 bcm. Orlen is planning to producing about 0.5 bcm of this raw material as well.
Many companies need biomethane and green and stable electricity. A lot of companies from the agricutlure and food industry are planning to build biogas plants, primarily with up to 500 kW of capacity for their own needs and for sale. My Ecotechnology Laboratory, the largest biogas laboratory in Poland, receives a lot of inquiries about biogas investments and a lot of samples of various substrates for testing their fermentation performance.
To summarize-the role of the government is to facilitate investments in biogas plants and biomethane plants, then the market will develop itself.
Currently, the University of Life Sciences in Poznań together with the National Centre for Research and Development are running the „Innovative Biogas Plant” project, in which the winner of the first stage of the competition builds the first biomethane plant in Poland in one of our experimental plants. On our own example, we are experiencing investment problems because, unfortunately, the rules for investors in this sector are complex and long-lasting. I believe that the government should be quicker about making this problem easier, reducing the time of administrative proceedings (this is already happening thanks to Minister Kowalski’s special act that is being already processed). It should also free up thousands of MW of connection capacity, which is currently blocked mainly by photovoltaics, and let generation sources with energy storage facilities operating at the peak be connected to the grid. Biogas plants play this role. When this changes, there will be a real explosion in the biogas market and thousands of installations will appear (most often with a capacity of between 250 and 999 kW) stabilizing local grids.
The potential of using this energy source is enormous. Is biomass a more stable source than wind turbines and photovoltaics?
Of course. Biomass stores energy in chemical form and the easiest way to use it is through combustion, although this is the most primitive way of releasing this energy.
A much more advanced technique is the processing of biomass in biogas or biomethane plants. The result is biogas, which can be used to produce electricity, heat, cold or biomethane as a renewable fuel.
I cannot at the moment indicate the most promising direction for the use of biogas in the future, the next decade will show whether it will be used for the production of electricity and heat, or for the production of biomethane. I think the market will decide this, although I think that both trends should be strongly developed.
Poland has huge biomass resources that are currently underutilized. The 100 million tons of manure stored in heaps emit huge amounts of methane and nitrous oxide, which are very harmful greenhouse gases.
Inevitably we are the leader when it comes to „natural biogas plants” in Europe, because no other country has as much manure as Poland.
However, it should be noted that the planned biogas investments may provoke public protests. This is wrong, because a well-run biogas plant benefits the local community and contrary to myths – it does not emit odors – the (bio)gas installation must be leak-proof. That is why good examples are so important. In the village of Przybroda, where we have had a University experimental farm with a biogas plant, since autumn 2022, a third of the village receives heat generated from our biogas plant.
What is most interesting – this facility is not a source of social protests, on the contrary. In February this year, during a public consultation on the expansion of the biogas plant from 0.499 MW to 1 MW, 100 percent of the villagers present at the meeting supported the expansion plan. Public support for a working biogas plant is huge, and residents are very happy with the heat from „our biogas plant” – as they talk about it. Thanks to the expansion, by autumn 2023, the whole village will be heated with ecological heat from cogeneration.
Interview by Jacek Perzyński