Background Biogas
High energy prices do not make biogas more attractive
Relatively high gas prices and expensive electricity. You would think that would be beneficial for farmers with a biogas installation. In practice it only works out differently according to the German trade association Fachverband Biogas. Not only have the production costs of the biogas installations increased, the intervention of the German government in the energy market has also had major consequences.
The European energy supply, and especially the question of how to make it more independent of foreign players, is receiving a lot of attention. Biogas can make a modest contribution to this. Biogas plant operators have invested in recent months to provide additional energy in the form of electricity, heat and gas. They have invested and taken risks on the assumption that there would be a considerable price due to scarcity. "That is the principle of market economy," said Horste Seide, chairman of Fachverband Biogas in a statement on the organization's site.
Conflicting policy
The German Ministry of Economic Affairs only plans to skim off the profit that the biogas plants make on the production of electricity. In the worst case, this could mean that biogas installations are no longer used for the production of electricity and that energy must therefore be generated with natural gas and coal-fired power plants. The Fachverband finds the signal that the government is sending to the market even more worrying. The market was already very turbulent last year. That made potential farmers cautious about building new biogas plants. Government intervention in the market reinforces that sentiment, which may lead to more interested producers dropping out, warns the Fachverband Bios. Do the trade association follow a development that is at odds with the climate and greenhouse gas targets. Biogas in particular could play a major role in this in Germany.
Jurphaas Lugtenburg
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