17.-19. April 2013: IEA Bioenergy Meeting in Bern - Representatives from 11 European countries and Brazil discussed the biogas work program 2013-2015. The participants defined specific tasks in the field of biogas production for the next few years.
The work package "Methane emissions from biogas production" is coordinated by Prof. Dr. Bernd Linke (ATB). Methane emissions along the entire process chain - from substrate provision, preparation and fermentation, to storage and spreading of digestate - occur and affect the positive effects in the production of biogas. The results for methane emissions from biogas production provide the data base for other tasks in the context of biogas life cycle assessment (LCA).
Future work focuses also on the fermentation of various waste materials such as the organic fraction of household waste, municipal sewage sludge and algae, and on using gas networks for biogas (smart grids). Another issue is the treatment of digestate. Especially in regions with high livestock density or in large fermentation plants a processing is useful as it concentrates nutrients and organic substances and thus increases the worthiness of transport.
The International Energy Agency (IEA) is a cooperation platform in the field of research, development, introduction and application of energy technologies.
Prof. Dr. Bernd Linke is the German representative in the IEA Task 37 since early 2011. The main objective of the IEA Task 37 work programme is to address the challenges related to the economic and environmental sustainability of biogas production and utilisation. While there are many biogas plants in OECD countries, operation in the vast majority of cases can only be sustained with the help of subsidies to be able to compete with the fossil energy industrial sector. There is a clear need to enhance many of the process steps in the biogas production chain in order to reduce both investment and operating costs. Task 37 started the process optimisation work in the 2010-2012 work programme and will intensify this focus in 2013-2015.