Identifying the Necessities of Regional-Based Analysis to Study Germany’s Biogas Production Development under Energy Transition

Xueqing Yang, Yang Liu, Mei Wang, Alberto Bezama and Daniela Thrän
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Xueqing Yang: Department of Bioenergy, Helmholtz-Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ), Permoserstraße 15, 04318 Leipzig, Germany
Yang Liu: WHU-Otto Beisheim School of Management, Burgplatz 2, 56179 Vallendar, Germany
Mei Wang: WHU-Otto Beisheim School of Management, Burgplatz 2, 56179 Vallendar, Germany
Alberto Bezama: Department of Bioenergy, Helmholtz-Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ), Permoserstraße 15, 04318 Leipzig, Germany
Daniela Thrän: Department of Bioenergy, Helmholtz-Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ), Permoserstraße 15, 04318 Leipzig, Germany

Land, 2021, vol. 10, issue 2, 1-20

Abstract: The German Renewable Energy Sources Act (EEG) has been deemed successful in promoting German biogas production. However, the German state-level biogas production development (BPD) under the EEG has not been systematically studied and compared. This research aimed to study the German state-level BPD using the multivariate linear regression model with a dummy variable, and to spatially quantify the environmental and agricultural consequences using the geographic information system (GIS) technique to identify the necessities of regional-based analysis on Germany’s BPD. The empirical results indicated that Saxony-Anhalt was advanced in BPD, while farmers’ response from Bavaria to EEG was the weakest. The reason behind could be the differences in farmers’ personality traits and risk cognitions toward the biogas production investment. The spatial analysis indicated that Saxony-Anhalt had more severe environmental problems caused by the biogas production expansion than Bavaria. Therefore, to promote BPD in states such as Bavaria, an increase in the nationwide unified subsidy might lead to an overreaction of the EEG strong response states, e.g., Saxony-Anhalt, leading to more serious environmental problems. In the end, there is a need for more regional-based research on studying the BPD in Germany in the future to avoid the ambiguity of large-scale studies.

Keywords: EEG; imbalanced biogas production development; sustainability; regional-based study; agricultural structure change; landscape matrices; behavioral finance (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q15 Q2 Q24 Q28 Q5 R14 R52 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jlands:v:10:y:2021:i:2:p:135-:d:490653

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