Tuesday, 24 June 2014

Slow down in the development of the biogas power plants in Poland

As PAP (Polish Associated Press) reported on June 18, 2014 no predictable support system is the main obstacle in the construction of biogas industry.

On Wednesday June 18,2014 took place a conference on the future of biogas industry in Poland. This topic has been discussed on the blog already, in the post: http://polish-energy-blog.blogspot.it/2014/05/biogas-environmentally-friendly.html

Unfortunately, the specialists gathered on the conference were not expressing positive opinion about the development of the sector. Adopted in 2010 by the government development strategy of biogas in Poland predicted that by 2020, every Polish community, having the right conditions, will operate an average of one biogas plant using biomass of agricultural origin. Four years after implementation of the plan, only 50 biogas power plants were founded.

The map below, retrieved from the information available on the website http://www.biogazienergia.pl, shows the location of biogas power plants in Poland

Participants of the conference, summarizing the two-year educational and information campaign, stressed that the development of biogas plants practically stopped. The President of the Foundation for the Development of Polish Agriculture (FDPA) Monika Szymanska pointed out that behind the lack of the development of the sector stand irrational reasons such as the fear of the odour from the plant. The financial subsidies that were based on the Green Certificate system (that is about to finish) also contributed to lack of the interest in investments.

Owners of already operating biogas plants,, stressed that their plants often have limited power production due to lack of profitability, despite the fact that they bring a number of other benefits. They exchanged waste management of agricultural and food products, the production of natural fertilizer, replacing fertilizers, reducing CO2 emissions, local heating networks supply heat at a low price, etc. What’s more, it has been pointed out that proposed draft ,of the new legislation on RES support scheme based on auctions of "green" energy, will be unfavorable for them, because they usually do not produce biogas energy exclusively for sale but mainly for their own needs.