Beyond energy crops and subsidised electricity – A study on sustainable biogas production and utilisation in advanced energy markets

Robert Bedoić, Filip Jurić, Boris Ćosić, Tomislav Pukšec, Lidija Čuček and Neven Duić

Energy, 2020, vol. 201, issue C

Abstract: The aim of this study is to investigate the operation of biogas plants in advanced energy markets after energy crops become limited in their use and biogas plants exit subsidy schemes for electricity production. Continuous biogas combined heat and power production and sale of electricity on the day-ahead market could be a viable operation strategy only in the case of low-cost substrates. When the break-even cost of electricity production in biogas power plants reaches 100 €/MWhel, selling electricity on the day-ahead market does not create profit. The study shown that a more profitable operation strategy involves coupling biogas power plant operation on the electricity balancing market with biomethane production or combining a small-scale sugar beet processing facility with a biogas upgrading plant to cover heat demand for sugar beet processing. Techno-economic analysis showed that the viability of both alternative operation strategies is severely impacted by the selling price of biomethane. In the given market conditions, a selling price of biomethane below 50 €/MWh is not viable for a biogas plant. The model developed could be used as a guideline for biogas plant operators on how to proceed after significant changes appear in both biogas production and biogas utilisation.

Keywords: Anaerobic digestion; Biomethane; Electricity markets; Heat utilisation; Sugar beet (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (10)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360544220307581
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:energy:v:201:y:2020:i:c:s0360544220307581

DOI: 10.1016/j.energy.2020.117651

Access Statistics for this article

Energy is currently edited by Henrik Lund and Mark J. Kaiser

More articles in Energy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().