The Danish bioenergy programme

In Denmark biogas is produced from several different types of facilities: Anaerobic industrial waste and waste water treatment plants, anaerobic sludge stabilization plants, landfill gas plants and single farm and centralized biogas plants. Centralized biogas plants account for approximately 40% of the total production of biogas. In the recent 5 years the single farm plant technology has been considerably improved. Standardized concepts has been developed, which have decreased the construction price of single farm plants, and the introduction of dual fuel gas engines has lowered the cost and increased the efficiency of the energy production unit. Dual fuel gas engines use 7-10% diesel oil together with the gas. They are based on diesel engine principles, often they are modified standard diesel engines, which are cheaper and more simple than ignition gas engines. The construction cost for a typical single farm plant with a 150-200 m3 reactor is 200,000 USD. As the farmer can obtain a 30% funding from the Danish Energy Agency, the net cost for the farmer is 134,000 USD. The annual income if manure and some industrial waste in co-digested is around 30,000-35,000 USD and the annual running costs is in the level of 5,000-6,000 USD. (EG)