business plan for biogas production

Biogas Production Business Plan [Sample Template]

By: Author Tony Martins Ajaero

Home » Business Plans » Green & Eco-friendly

Are you about starting a biogas company? If YES, here is a detailed sample biogas production business plan template & feasibility report you can use for FREE .

If you are looking for a green energy business to start, a business that can easily get support and even funding from the government, then one of your options is to start a biogas production company . Biogas is a good substitute for the conventional gas. It is a renewable fuel that doesn’t pollute the environment.

This renewable energy can be used for heating, electricity, and many other operations that use a reciprocating internal combustion engine.

Starting a biogas production company is capital intensive and it also requires serious planning and hard work but the fact remains that it is indeed a profitable business to go into and it is still very much open for more investors to come in. Below is a sample biogas production business plan template that will help you successfully launch your own business.

A Sample Biogas Production Business Plan Template

1. industry overview.

Biogas is the combination of gases produced by the breakdown of organic matter in the absence of oxygen. Biogas can be produced from raw materials such as agricultural waste, manure, municipal waste, plant material, sewage, green waste or food waste.

Biogas is a renewable energy source. Compressed biogas is becoming widely used in Sweden, Switzerland, and Germany. Biogas can be used for electricity production on sewage works, in a CHP gas engine, where the waste heat from the engine is conveniently used for heating the digester; cooking; space heating; water heating; and process heating.

If compressed, it can replace compressed natural gas for use in vehicles, where it can fuel an internal combustion engine or fuel cells and it is a much more effective displacer of carbon dioxide than the normal use in on-site CHP plants.

Biogas production business is a subset of the Biomass Power industry and businesses in this industry operate electricity – generating facilities using biomass (e.g. agricultural byproducts, landfill gas and biogenic municipal waste). Establishments engaged in operating trash disposal incinerators that also generate electricity are classified in the Waste Treatment and Disposal Services industry.

The Biomass Power industry is a thriving sector of the economy of countries like Germany, Japan, China, South Korea, France, The United Kingdom and the united states of America. In the U.S., the industry generates over $908 million annually from more than 122 registered and licensed biotechnology companies (biogas production companies inclusive.

The industry is responsible for the employment of over 1,397 people. Experts project the Biomass Power industry to grow at a 0.8 percent annual rate between 2014 and 2019. Progress Energy is one company with the a market share of the market in the United States of America.

A recent report published by IBISWorld shows that the Biomass Power industry has grown slowly over the five years to 2019. The industry’s expansion has been propelled in part by several federal renewable energy tax credits that encouraged the use of biomass power.

Furthermore, the majority of states have enacted renewable portfolio standards (RPSs), which require local utilities to generate electricity from renewable power as a percentage of their total energy portfolio. Increased campaigning for green technology also influenced industry performance by sparking interest in technologies that replace pollutant-generating energy sources, such as coal and gas.

Some of the factors that encourage aspiring entrepreneurs and investors to start a biogas production business is the fact that the market is growing rapidly in the United States and it is not seasonal.

That makes it easier for entrepreneurs who are interested in the business to come into the industry at any time they desire; the entry barriers might be high but any serious minded entrepreneur can comfortably raise the startup capital even if it means collecting loans from the bank.

The Biomass Power industry is a green and highly profitable industry and it is open for entrepreneurs to come in; you can choose to start on a small scale by producing and supplying at a community level or you can start on a large scale with distribution networks spread across key cities all around the United States of America.

2. Executive Summary

Green Gas® Biogas Production Company, Inc. is a licensed biogas production company that will be involved in the production and distribution of biogas to retailers, industries, and households. We have been able to lease a production facility that is a perfect fit and the facility is centrally located in North Platte – Nebraska.

Green Gas® Biogas Production Company, Inc. will produce and supply biogas and other biofuels to end users at affordable prices.

There is growing interest in biomass power especially biogas and new enterprises are springing up, which is why we spent time and resources to conduct our feasibility studies and market survey so as to offer much more than our competitors will be offering.

We have robust distribution network; strong online presence and our distributors are armed with the various payments of options available in the United States.

Beyond the distribution and supply of biogas, our customer care is going to be second to none in the whole of North Platte – Nebraska and our deliveries will be timely and highly reliable. We know that our customers are the reason why we are in business which is why we will go the extra mile to get them satisfied when they patronize our products.

Green Gas® Biogas Production Company, Inc. will ensure that all our customers are given first class treatment whenever they order biogas and other biofuel from us. We have a CRM software that will enable us manage a one on one relationship with our customers no matter how large our customer base and distribution network may grow to.

Green Gas® Biogas Production Company, Inc. will at all times demonstrate her commitment to sustainability, both individually and as a firm, by actively participating in our communities and integrating sustainable business practices wherever possible.

We will ensure that we hold ourselves accountable to the highest standards by meeting our client’s needs precisely and completely.

Green Gas® Biogas Production Company, Inc. is a family business that is owned by Sutton Jones and his immediate family members. Sutton Jones has a B.Sc. in Microbiology and MSc. in Biotechnology, with over 15 years’ hands on experience in the biomass power industry, working for some of the leading brands in the United States.

3. Our Products and Services

Green Gas® Biogas Production Company, Inc. is in the Biomass Power industry and we will be involved in the production and distribution of quality and safe biogas and other biofuel products. We are in the Biomass Power industry to make profits and we will ensure that we do all that is permitted by the law in the United States to achieve our business aim and objectives.

4. Our Mission and Vision Statement

• Our vision is to be listed amongst the top 5 biogas production companies in the whole of the United States of America.
• Our mission is to establish a biogas production plant and supply business that will distribute quality and safe biogas at affordable prices to retailers, and industries in North Platte and other cities in and around Nebraska where we intend marketing our biogas and other biofuel.

Our Business Structure

Green Gas® Biogas Production Company, Inc. does not intend to compete at the local level; our intention of starting a biogas production company is to build a standard company in North Platte – Nebraska. We will ensure that we put the right structures in place that will support the kind of growth that we have in mind while setting up the business.

We want to put modalities in place that will guide us in hiring people that are qualified, honest, customer centric and are ready to work to help us build a prosperous business that will benefit all the stakeholders.

As a matter of fact, profit-sharing arrangement will be made available to all our senior management staff and it will be based on their performance for a period of ten years or more. In view of that, we have decided to hire qualified and competent hands to occupy the following positions that will be made available at Green Gas® Biogas Production Company, Inc.;

• Chief Executive Officer (Owner)
• Production Manager
• Human Resources and Amin Manager

Merchandize Manager

Sales and Marketing Manager

• Accountants / Cashiers
• Customer Services Executive
• Drivers / Distributors

5. Job Roles and Responsibilities

Chief Executive Officer – CEO:

• Increases management’s effectiveness by recruiting, selecting, orienting, training, coaching, counseling, and disciplining managers; communicating values, strategies, and objectives; assigning accountabilities; planning, monitoring, and appraising job results;
• Creates, communicates, and implements the organization’s vision, mission, and overall direction – i.e. leading the development and implementation of the overall organization’s strategy.
• Responsible for fixing prices and signing business deals
• Responsible for providing direction for the business
• Responsible for signing checks and documents on behalf of the company
• Evaluates the success of the organization
• Reports to the board

Admin and HR Manager

• Responsible for overseeing the smooth running of HR and administrative tasks for the organization
• Maintains office supplies by checking stocks; placing and expediting orders; evaluating new products.
• Ensures operation of equipment by completing preventive maintenance requirements; calling for repairs.
• Defines job positions for recruitment and managing interviewing process
• Carries out induction for new team members
• Accountable for training, evaluation and assessment of employees
• Responsible for arranging travel, meetings and appointments
• Oversees the smooth running of the daily office activities.

Production Plant Manager

• Responsible for overseeing the smooth running of the biogas production plant
• Part of the team that determines the quantity and quality of biogas and biofuels that are to be produced
• Maps out strategies that will lead to efficiency amongst workers in the plant
• Responsible for training, evaluation and assessment of plant workers
• Ensures the steady flow of raw materials to the plant and easy flow of finished products through wholesale distributors to the market
• Ensures that the plant meets expected safety and health standard at all times.
• Responsible for using space and mechanical handling equipment efficiently and making sure quality, budgetary targets and environmental objectives are met
• In charge of  using and coordinating automated and computerized systems where necessary
• Accountable for producing regular reports and statistics on a daily, weekly and monthly basis
• Ensures that proper records of biogas and other biofuel products are kept and warehouse does not run out of products
• Controls biogas supply inventory
• Supervises the workforce in the production floor.
• Manages vendor relations, market visits, and the ongoing education and development of the organizations’ buying teams
• Responsible for the purchase of biogas and other biofuel products for the organizations
• Ensures that the organization operates within stipulated budget.
• Manages external research and coordinate all the internal sources of information to retain the organizations’ best customers and attract new ones
• Models demographic information and analyze the volumes of transactional data generated by customer purchases
• Identifies, prioritizes, and reaches out to new partners, and business opportunities et al
• Identifies development opportunities; follows up on development leads and contacts
• Responsible for supervising implementation, advocate for the customer’s needs, and communicate with clients
• Documents all customer contact and information
• Represents the company in strategic meetings
• Helps to increase sales and growth for the company

Accountant/Cashier:

• Responsible for preparing financial reports, budgets, and financial statements for the organization
• Provides managements with financial analyses, development budgets, and accounting reports
• Responsible for financial forecasting and risks analysis.
• Performs cash management, general ledger accounting, and financial reporting
• Responsible for developing and managing financial systems and policies
• Responsible for administering payrolls
• Ensures compliance with taxation legislation
• Handles all financial transactions for the organization
• Serves as internal auditor for the organization

Client Service Executive

• Ensures that all contacts with clients (e-mail, walk-In center, SMS or phone) provides the client with a personalized customer service experience of the highest level
• Through interaction with customers on the phone, uses every opportunity to build client’s interest in the company’s products and services
• Manages administrative duties assigned by the human resources and admin manager in an effective and timely manner
• Consistently stays abreast of any new information on the organizations’ products, promotional campaigns etc. to ensure accurate and helpful information are supplied to customers when they make enquiries.

Distribution Truck Drivers

• Assists in loading and unloading biogas and other biofuel products
• Maintains a logbook of their driving activities to ensure compliance with federal regulations governing the rest and work periods for operators.
• Keeps a record of vehicle inspections and make sure the truck is equipped with safety equipment
• Assists the transport and logistics manager in planning their route according to a distribution schedule.
• Inspects vehicles for mechanical items and safety issues and perform preventative maintenance
• Complies with truck driving rules and regulations (size, weight, route designations, parking, break periods etc.) as well as with company policies and procedures
• Reports defects, accidents or violations

6. SWOT Analysis

Our goal of starting out in North Platte is to test run the business for a period of 3 to 5 years to know if we will invest more money, expand the business and then start our biogas production and supply all around the state of Nebraska.

We are quite aware that there are several biogas production companies and contractors all over North Platte and even in the same location where we intend locating ours, which is why we are following the due process of establishing a business.

We know that if a proper SWOT analysis is conducted for our business, we will be able to position our business to maximize our strength, leverage on the opportunities that will be available to us, mitigate our risks and be equipped to confront our threats.

Green Gas® Biogas Production Company, Inc. employed the services of an expert HR and Business Analyst with bias in retailing and distribution to help us conduct a thorough SWOT analysis and to help us create a Business model that will help us achieve our business goals and objectives. This is the summary of the SWOT analysis that was conducted for Green Gas® Biogas Production Company, Inc.;

Our location, the business model we will be operating on (robust distribution network), reliable distribution tankers, varieties of payment options, quality and safe biogas and other biofuel products and our excellent customer service culture will definitely count as a strong strength for us.

So also, our management team are people who have what it takes to grow a business from startup to profitability in record time.

A major weakness that may count against us is the fact that we are a new biogas production company and we don’t have the financial capacity to compete with leaders in the industry especially as it relates to leveraging on economy of scales.

• Opportunities:

Regional public utility commissions regulate retail electricity prices. Biomass power plants controlled by regulated utility companies are subject to regulated retail prices.

Industry operators that successfully petition for rate hikes benefit from increased revenue and profitability, while companies that are unable to obtain favorable rulings will have difficulty operating in the industry. In 2019, the price of electric power is expected to increase, representing a potential opportunity for the industry.

Tax credits make biomass-power projects more affordable for biomass-power generation enterprises to execute. With cost savings, operators can more effectively compete based on the price of electricity with other types of energy-generation technologies.

With the expiration of the production tax credit and no renewal planned in 2019, the net value of tax credits directed at biomass power generation are expected to decrease, representing a potential threat to the industry.

7. MARKET ANALYSIS

• Market Trends

In recent time, particularly in the United States, the awareness and use of biogas is rapidly increasing because it has been proven to be environmentally friendly and efficient when used in any machine that runs on gas. It has lower to zero emission compared to the liquefied natural gas.

Strong growth in the current period is expected to continue, technological advancements spurred demand from downstream industries and the industry is developing new revenue streams from outsourced research and other related bio products.

Please note that external factors such as global research and development funding and global investor confidence in the Biomass Power industry will impact industry performance.

Many investors are now going into the production of biogas because it has been proven to be a better substitute for gas and that is why it is now produced in commercial quantities in the US thereby reducing the importation and dependence on natural gas.

8. Our Target Market

The Biomass Power industry has a wide range of customers; a good number of manufacturing companies and owners of gas – powered machines make use of biogas and other biofuel products.

In view of that, we have positioned our biogas production company to service businesses in North Platte – Nebraska and every other location we will cover in Nebraska.  We have conducted our market research and we have ideas of what our target market would be expecting from us. We are in business to retail (distribute) biogas and other biofuel products to the following businesses;

• Manufacturing companies
• Power plants that run on biogas
• Facility managers that make use of biogas

Our Competitive Advantage

Green Gas® Biogas Production Company, Inc. is launching a standard biogas production company that will indeed become the preferred choice for gas – powered machine owners and biogas distributors et al in North Platte – Nebraska.

Our competitive advantage revolves around our ability to attract local support and patronage, easy compliance with government regulations, ability to quickly adopt new technology, ability to raise financing and our ability to educate the wider community on the need to switch to green energy.

One thing is certain; we will ensure that we have biogas and other biofuel products available in our distribution network at all times. One of our business goals is to make Green Gas® Biogas Production Company, Inc. a one stop biogas production company.

Our excellent customer service culture, timely and reliable delivery services, online presence, and various payment options will serve as a competitive advantage for us.

Lastly, our employees will be well taken care of, and their welfare package will be among the best within our category in the industry meaning that they will be more than willing to build the business with us and help deliver our set goals and achieve all our aims and objectives.

We will also give good working conditions and commissions to freelance sales agents that we will recruit from time to time.

9. SALES AND MARKETING STRATEGY

• Sources of Income

Green Gas® Biogas Production Company, Inc. will generate income by producing and supplying biogas and other biofuel products within the scope of the Biomass Power industry in the United States of America.

10. Sales Forecast

One thing is certain, when it comes to biogas production, if your business is centrally positioned coupled with effective and reliable tankers/trucks and distribution network, you will always attract customers cum sales and that will sure translate to increase in revenue generation for the business.

Green Gas® Biogas Production Company, Inc. is well positioned to take on the available market in North Platte – Nebraska and we are quite optimistic that we will meet our set target of generating enough income/profits from the first six months of operation and grow the business and our clientele base.

We have been able to examine the Biomass Power industry, we have analyzed our chances in the industry and we have been able to come up with the following sales forecast. The sales projections are based on information gathered on the field and some assumptions that are peculiar to startups in North Platte – Nebraska.

Below are the sales projections for Green Gas® Biogas Production Company, Inc., it is based on the location of our business, and other factors as it relates to biogas and other biofuel products start – ups in the United States;

• First Fiscal Year:  $335,000
• Second Fiscal Year:  $650,000
• Third Fiscal Year:  $1.1 million

N.B : This projection was done based on what is obtainable in the industry and with the assumption that there won’t be any major economic meltdown and there won’t be any major competitor offering same products as we do within same location. Please note that the above projection might be lower and at the same time it might be higher.

• Marketing Strategy and Sales Strategy

Before choosing a location to launch Green Gas® Biogas Production Company, Inc., we conducted a thorough market survey and feasibility studies in order for us to penetrate the available market and become the preferred choice for retailers of biogas and other biofuel in North Platte – Nebraska.

We have detailed information and data that we were able to utilize to structure our business to attract the number of customers we want to attract per time.

We hired experts who have good understanding of the biogas production business to help us develop marketing strategies that will help us achieve our business goal of winning a larger percentage of the available market in North Platte – Nebraska.

In summary, Green Gas® Biogas Production Company, Inc. will adopt the following sales and marketing approach to win customers over;

• Introduce our business by sending introductory letters alongside our brochure to biogas and other biofuel products retailers, factories, facility managers, hotels, households and key stake holders in and around North Platte – Nebraska
• Ensure that we have a biogas and other biofuel products in our distribution network at all times.
• Make use of attractive hand bills to create awareness business
• Position our signage / flexi banners at strategic places around North Platte – Nebraska

11. Publicity and Advertising Strategy

Even though our biogas production company is well structured and well located, we will still go ahead to intensify publicity for the business.

Green Gas® Biogas Production Company, Inc. has a long-term plan of opening distribution channels all around the state of Nebraska which is why we will deliberately build our brand to be well accepted in North Platte before venturing out.

As a matter of fact, our publicity and advertising strategy is not solely for winning customers over but to effectively communicate our brand. Here are the platforms we intend leveraging on to promote and advertise Green Gas® Biogas Production Company, Inc.;

• Place adverts on community – based newspapers, radio and TV stations
• Encourage the use of word of mouth publicity from our loyal customers
• Leverage on the internet and social media platforms like; YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Snapchat, Google+ and other platforms to promote our business.
• Ensure that our we position our banners and billboards in strategic positions all around North Platte – Nebraska
• Distribute our fliers and handbills in target areas in and around our neighborhood
• Advertise our biogas production company in our official website and employ strategies that will help us pull traffic to the site
• Brand all our official cars and distribution vans/trucks and ensure that all our staff members and management staff wear our branded shirt or cap at regular intervals.

12. Our Pricing Strategy

Pricing is one of the key factors that give leverage to distribution companies and retailers, it is normal for retailers to purchase products from distribution companies that they offer cheaper prices. We will work towards ensuring that all our biogas and other biofuel products are distributed at highly competitive prices compared to what is obtainable in the United States of America.

• Payment Options

The payment policy adopted by Green Gas® Biogas Production Company, Inc. is all inclusive because we are quite aware that different customers prefer different payment options as it suits them but at the same time, we will ensure that we abide by the financial rules and regulation of the United States of America.

Here are the payment options that Green Gas® Biogas Production Company, Inc. will make available to her clients;

• Payment via bank transfer
• Payment via credit cards/Point of Sale Machines (POS Machines)
• Payment via POS machines
• Payment via online bank transfer
• Payment via check
• Payment via bank draft

In view of the above, we have chosen banking platforms that will enable our client make payment for biogas and other biofuel products purchase without any stress on their part.

13. Startup Expenditure (Budget)

From our findings, we were able to come with the areas we will spend our resources on and this is what it will cost us to set up Green Gas® Biogas Production Company, Inc. in the United of America;

• The total fee for registering the business in the United States of America – $750.
• Legal expenses for obtaining licenses and permits as well as the accounting services (software, P.O.S machines and other software) – $3,300.
• Production Company, Inc. in the amount of $3,500 and as well as flyer printing (2,000 flyers at $0.04 per copy) for the total amount of $3,580.
• The cost for hiring business consultant – $2,500.
• The cost for insurance (general liability, workers’ compensation and property casualty) coverage at a total premium – $2,400.
• The cost for payment of rent for 12 months at $1.76 per square feet tank facility cum mini depot in the total amount of $250,000.
• The total cost for production facility remodeling (construction of mini depot / tank far) – $100,000.
• Other start-up expenses including stationery ($500) and phone and utility deposits ($2,500).
• Operational cost for the first 3 months (salaries of employees, payments of bills et al) – $150,000
• The cost for Start-up inventory (stocking with biogas and other biofuel products raw materials et al) – $200,000
• The cost for store equipment (cash register, security, ventilation, signage) – $13,750
• The cost of purchase and installation of CCTVs – $5,000
• The cost for the purchase of furniture and gadgets (Computers, Printers, Telephone, TVs, Sound System, tables and chairs et al) – $4,000.
• The cost for the purchase of distribution tankers / trucks – $75,000
• The cost of launching a website – $600
• Miscellaneous – $10,000

We would need an estimate of $1.2 million to successfully set up our biogas production company in North Platte – Nebraska.

Generating Funds/Startup Capital for Green Gas® Biogas Production Company, Inc.

Green Gas® Biogas Production Company, Inc. is a private business that is owned and financed by Sutton Jones and his immediate family members. They do not intend to welcome any external business partner which is why he has decided to restrict the sourcing of the startup capital to 3 major sources.

• Generate part of the startup capital from personal savings
• Source for soft loans from family members and friends
• Apply for loan from the bank

N.B: We have been able to generate about $500,000 (Personal savings $450,000 and soft loan from family members $50,000) and we are at the final stages of obtaining a loan facility of $700,000 from our bank. All the papers and documents have been signed and submitted, the loan has been approved and any moment from now our account will be credited with the amount.

14. Sustainability and Expansion Strategy

Part of the plans we have in place to sustain Green Gas® Biogas Production Company, Inc. is to ensure that we continue to deliver quality services, improvise on how to do things faster and cheaper. We are not going to relent in providing conducive environment for our workers and also the required trainings that will help them deliver excellent services at all times.

From our findings, another factor that kills new business is financial leakages. In order to plug financial leakages, the management of Green Gas® Biogas Production Company, Inc. will adopt the use of payment machine and accounting software to run the business.

We are quite aware that our customers are key component to the growth and survival of our business hence we are going to continuously engage them to give us ideas on how to serve them better.

Our key sustainability and expansion strategy as a business is to ensure that we only hire competent and technically sound employees, create a conducive working environment and employee benefits for all our staff members. We know that if we implement our business strategies, we will grow our biogas production business beyond North Platte – Nebraska to other states in the U.S in record time.

Check List/Milestone

• Business Name Availability Check : Completed
• Business Registration: Completed
• Opening of Corporate Bank Accounts: Completed
• Securing Point of Sales (POS) Machines: Completed
• Opening Mobile Money Accounts: Completed
• Opening Online Payment Platforms: Completed
• Application and Obtaining Tax Payer’s ID: In Progress
• Application for business license and permit: Completed
• Purchase of Insurance for the Business: Completed
• Leasing of mini depot facility and construction of production plant: In Progress
• Conducting Feasibility Studies: Completed
• Generating capital from family members: Completed
• Applications for Loan from the bank: In Progress
• Writing of Business Plan: Completed
• Drafting of Employee’s Handbook: Completed
• Drafting of Contract Documents and other relevant Legal Documents: In Progress
• Design of The Company’s Logo: Completed
• Printing of Promotional Materials: In Progress
• Recruitment of employees: In Progress
• Purchase of the needed machines, technology, furniture, reservoirs, computers, electronic appliances, office appliances and CCTV: In progress
• Purchase of distribution tankers/trucks: Completed
• Creating Official Website for the Company: In Progress
• Creating Awareness for the business both online and around the community: In Progress
• Health and Safety and Fire Safety Arrangement (License): Secured
• Establishing business relationship with biogas and other biofuel products distributors all across the United States of America: In Progress

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Anaerobic Digestion .svg-icon-arrow .st0{fill:white;}

• Wet digestion systems
• Dry digestion systems
• Small scale digesters
• Digester tanks
• Digester covers
• Odor management

Biogas Management .svg-icon-arrow .st0{fill:white;}

• CO2 Capture and Utilization
• Biogas boilers
• Biogas flare
• Biogas covers & storage
• Biogas pretreatment
• Biogas upgrading

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• Virtual Pipeline
• Odorization

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• Solids handling
• Truck scales
• Waste pretreatment
• Waste sorting

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• Nutrient recovery
• Digestate thickening and dewatering
• Pasteurization

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• Solid/liquid separators
• Solids dryers

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• Hydrolysers
• Hydrogen to methane
• Hydrogen to methanol
• Hydrogen storage
• Hydrogen compressors

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• Biogas & RNG Purchasers
• Biogas & RNG Project Consulting
• Biogas System Engineering
• Engineering, Procurement Construction (EPC)
• Environmental Attributes, Credits, Offsets
• Project Developer
• Testing and Motinoring

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Biogas plant development handbook.

• Troubleshooting: Biogas Plants problems
• Biogas plant Monitoring
• Industry Careers

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The objective of this handbook is to provide the reader with a general project development roadmap to assist him/her through the complex tasks of planning, designing, procuring, permitting, building and operating an efficient and viable biogas plant.

Note that this handbook will be regularly updated with new content about biogas, anaerobic digestion, and the best practices of our industry.

Biogas plant development handbook sections

1.  Introduction

2.  Why Building Biogas Plants?

3.  Anaerobic Digestion

4.  Biogas Plant Fundamentals

5.  Biogas Plant Safety

6.  Input Feedstock

7.  Biogas Process Technologies

8.  Biogas Energy

9.  Digestate Management

10.  Biogas Plant Components

11.  Biogas Project Economics

12.  Biogas Project Development

Our firm has been selling biogas engineering expertise for over 12 years in various agricultural, agro-food and municipal organic waste management sectors.  I’m constantly amazed to discover that significant biogas plant projects suffer from improper planning and design resulting in suboptimal biogas plants operation and economics. Most of these easily avoidable errors are due to initial misconception, lack of knowledge and information on the subject of biogas plant engineering.

There exist a lot of excellent publications on the subject of anaerobic digestion and biogas utilization but very few on the subject of biogas engineering and biogas project development as a whole.

I remember my early years as a biogas engineer where I got infatuated with the subject and devoured a large quantity of technical information on anaerobic digestion and biogas utilization. Over the years, these technical aspects have receded to the background as I focused my work on equally complex issues such as project planning, financing, procurement, permitting, politics and operation. It is these subject matters that are the primary focus of this handbook.

This handbook has been written to be published as either a set of ever-evolving hyperlinked articles in a website ( BiogasWorld ) or as a standalone eBook because the rapidly evolving biogas industry demands it.

I hope you will enjoy the reading and find valuable information to help you design, build, and operate a better biogas plant.

Eric Camirand, P.Eng.

President, Electrigaz Technologies Inc.

1. Introduction

This handbook has been written for readers recognizing themselves in one of these statements:

• You are asking yourself how you could turn organic waste into gold?
• You have been tasked with the job of building a biogas plant to treat organic waste and have no clue how to go about it?
• You have been studying this subject for years and you think you are now ready to build your own biogas plant?
• You are intrigued by this amazing technology converting waste into renewable energy and fertilizer and want to learn more about it?
• You have been learning about biogas for years and the more you learn about it, the more you realize its complexity and get confused?
• You are operating a biogas plant and are wondering why it is performing poorly and trying to find concrete solutions to these problems?

If you identified yourself in one of these statements, you are officially deemed cursed with an infinite appetite for more information on the subject matter of biogas plant development and operation.

This handbook has been written to help you make the best out of your predicament.

2. Why building biogas plants?

Why would you not want to get rich by turning organic waste into renewable energy and fertilizer while reducing overall environmental issues related to their disposal?

In reality, there exist three (3) reasons why people build biogas plants:

• Compliance with regulation
• Economic opportunities

Beyond this reality, there exists a killer question that is frequently asked: “Why not compost ? Isn’t it less expensive?”

The easy answer is: “It depends.” (not a very useful one, though). In reality, it is difficult to answer this question simply.  Each project has its own regulatory, energy market and local environmental realities that influence the choice between composting or anaerobic digestion.

In general, it is cheaper to perform open air composting at smaller solid organic waste tonnages (less than 10 000 tonnes/year).  Beyond that, a thorough feasibility study must be performed to measure the challenges and opportunities of each organic waste treatment technology.

Anaerobic digestion and composting often played one against the other. In reality, these technologies are complementary and should often be developed jointly to leverage the strengths that each has to offer.

There are three (3) major regulatory drivers forcing the development of biogas plants:

• Greenhouse gas (GHG) policies
• Renewable energy policies
• Recycling policies

Despite their biogas capture systems, landfill emits a significant amount of fugitive methane to the atmosphere, therefore contributing to greenhouse gas emissions. Additionally, landfilling of organics does not comply with typical recycling policies that state that waste should be reduced, reused and recycled (3Rs) prior to final disposal, since organic waste in this scenario is not returned to land.

For these reasons, GHG and recycling policies are generally leading to the ban of organic landfilling therefore forcing composting and/or anaerobic digestion of organic waste.

Renewable energy policies, such as Renewable Portfolio Standards (RPS), established in many states and countries force energy utilities to produce a certain percentage of their energy from renewable sources. These utilities are constantly on the lookout for affordable renewable energy such as biogas energy.

Economic opportunity

Biogas plants create economic opportunities in markets where energy costs and/or waste disposal costs are relatively high. Since the organic fraction of municipal solid waste can represent approximately 50% of MSW mass, it becomes economically interesting to divert the organic fraction from conventional disposal towards anaerobic digestion.

Processing of organic waste in a biogas plant can help reduce waste disposal cost. Production of biogas from organic waste can help generate an affordable renewable energy. Combined, these opportunities drive the development of biogas projects.

For example, small island countries can benefit greatly from biogas plant since they often generate expensive and dirty electricity with diesel ($0.50+/kWh) and are confronted with significant challenges regarding disposal of their waste.

Some biogas plants get built for no good reasons, primarily driven by sheer madness and/or egotistical motivations. Most of these project developers were blind to key biogas project fundamentals that will be discussed later in this handbook.

These poorly planned and executed projects are resulting in biogas plants with poor operational and economic efficiencies and, in general, hurt the industry.

3. Anaerobic digestion

Anaerobic digestion is a natural bacterial process by which a consortium of anaerobic bacteria is biodegrading organic matter in an environment without oxygen.

These bacteria require a favorable environment to thrive. Proper temperature, lack of oxygen, proper feeding, acidity, and mixing are the key to efficient anaerobic digestion.

The anaerobic digestion process takes place in equipment called anaerobic digesters or, in short, digesters. Digesters must be fed as constantly as possible regardless of feedstock fluctuations.

Several types of bacteria work together to convert the digestible volatile solids within the feedstock into biogas. Though most feedstocks are composed primarily of water, you cannot make biogas with water. You make biogas out of the digestible fraction of the solids within the feedstock.

Although lignocellulosic material, such as wood, contains a lot of volatile solids (burnable), these solids are not digestible in an anaerobic digester.

The conversion of solids into biogas makes the substrate more liquid. That’s why it is possible to feed solid feedstock into liquid digesters without them clogging up.

Biogas is composed primarily of methane and carbon dioxide.

4. Biogas Plant Fundamentals

Inexperienced biogas developers often focus their effort on the technical aspects rather than the project fundamentals.

The technology choice is always secondary to the establishment of the following fundamentals:

The feedstock quantity and composition must be well known and under the control of the project developer. Without proper feedstock, there is no biogas project.

There must be a client for the biogas energy. If there is none, you might as well just compost the material.

Biogas plants transform only 10% of the mass they process into biogas. The remaining 90% of the mass fed into the digester comes out as a fertilizer called digestate. The project must have a long term inexpensive outlet for this digestate otherwise the project will not succeed.

Finally, the project must be bankable. That means that investment, operational costs, and revenue must be predictable and balanced for the project to secure its financing.

If any of these fundamentals fall short the table will tilt and will make the project viability difficult or impossible. The technology choice is a result of these fundamentals.

5. Biogas plant Health & Safety

Like any other industrial activity, biogas plant accidents happen, and people get hurt or die. Not only do these accidents hurt people, but they also set back the biogas industry as a whole. It is important that biogas plant health and safety becomes an integral value of all biogas plant designers, builders or operators, as well as the general public. Obviously, plant designers and operators must work hand in hand to identify health and safety risks and take actions to mitigate them.

Biogas plants are often perceived as dangerous infrastructures because they feature impressive reservoirs containing biogas. In general, the public wrongly fears explosions because it is assumed that these reservoirs are entirely filled with pressurized explosive gases when in fact they are filled primarily with wastewater with only the top of the tank containing near atmospheric pressure biogas.

Health & Safety Risks Associated with a Biogas Plant

All the following risks are easily mitigated if health & safety are engraved within all phases of a biogas project development:

• Confined space hazards
• Gas poisoning (H2S, NH3)
• Hydraulic discharge
• High pressure gas or liquid leaks
• Rotating mechanical equipment
• Pathogens (diseases)
• Electrical system hazards

Design Phase Health & Safety

The design phase is crucial to overall biogas plant safety. The first line of defense comes from the various norms and codes that are there to protect public health and safety. By following established codes such as CSA, NFPA, OSHA, Building codes, etc., the designer ensures that the plant is safe for its operators.

Proper explosion zone classification is essential to ensure that the electrical system installed is adapted to the explosion risk. In general, biogas piping and equipment is kept outside of the buildings to avoid costly explosion-proof equipment and buildings.

The creation of confined space should be avoided as much as possible during the design phase to ensure a safe and easy-to-operate environment for the workers. It goes along that proper ventilation must be designed to ensure health and comfort of the biogas plant operators.

Furthermore, operational activities need to be understood at the design phase to identify various risks that may arise from operations. Risk analysis such as “what if” and HAZOP need to be performed to identify, quantify, and find risks mitigation strategies.

Construction Phase Health & Safety

As any other industrial construction, biogas plant construction requires proper planning and on-site measures to ensure the health and safety of the workers building the plant.

An on-site health and safety agent is often required to ensure respect of established health and safety measures.

Commissioning Phase Health & Safety

For various reasons, the commissioning of a biogas plant is probably the most dangerous phase of a biogas plant project life.

Since methane is explosive in air at a concentration between 5% and 15%, the digesters contain an explosive atmosphere at some point during the start-up phase. When methane concentration rises above 15%, the risk of explosion is considerably reduced. In fact, biogas plants are then more likely to catch fire than to explode.

Although rare, structural failures may occur during system loadings such as reservoir filling or high-pressure piping testing.

Accidental hydraulic discharges may occur during pre-operation testing of pumps and valves, which may cause injuries.

It is important to test and calibrate health & safety equipment to ensure that they are ready for service during the most dangerous phase of the project.

Operation Phase Health & Safety

Incidents and accidents occur mainly during the operation of the plant, and they are either caused by equipment failure, improper equipment utilization, or plain human errors.

The most deadly accidents are caused by gas poisoning (H2S and NH3) in open and confined spaces.

Proper confined space training and portable gas detection should be mandatory for all biogas plant operators.

Equipment lockout procedures should be strictly enforced to avoid unnecessary accidents. Proper training on processes and equipment should be mandatory for all biogas plant operators.

Health and safety equipment, such as gas detection, should be routinely checked for precision and calibration.

Proper hygienic procedures (showers, hands cleaning, etc.) need to be enforced to avoid pathogen-driven diseases.

Finally, the staff of a biogas plant should be trained in basic firefighting skills and able to practice CPR.

Click here to see US EPA common safety practices for On-Farm AD systems  Common Safety Practices→

6. Input feedstock

The feedstock dictates the biogas technology to be used, not the other way around. In order to properly design a biogas plant, the developer must fully understand its feedstock.

How will the feedstock be collected and arrive at the biogas plant? How much of it? When will it come? Which form, liquid or solid? Which type of trucks? Is there a significant variation in volumes throughout the seasons? Will this volume increase or decrease over the years?

A significant amount of work must go into trying to model the variation of feedstock throughout the days, months and years of a project. Without this information, it is likely to lead to improper sizing of biogas plants resulting in an inefficient operation and investment.

The composition of the feedstock must also be well known to identify the most suitable technologies to process this material. Furthermore, understanding feedstock composition will allow forecasting digestate quality which will help identify outlets for the digestate.

A detailed analysis of the feedstock composition from a trusted laboratory  will outline the following feedstock properties:

• Dry matter content or total solids (TS)
• Volatile solids (VS)
• Total Kedjhal Nitrogen (TKN)
• Contaminants (plastics, glass, metals, etc.)

The total solids test consists of completely drying the material to determine the mass ratio of solids versus the water in the material. For example, dairy cow slurry typically contains 10% solids and 90% water.

The volatile solids test consists of burning (600 °C) the solids from the total solids test to determine the mass ratio of volatile solids (burned) versus ashes.

Note that lignocellulosic material (wood) and plastics will volatilize but are, in fact, not digestible by anaerobic digesters.

Furthermore, anaerobic digestion may be hindered by various inhibiting compounds such as sulfur, salts, ammonia, etc.

For these reasons, additional tests may be performed on the feedstock to determine digestibility, long-term stability and biogas yield. Laboratories with biogas expertise will offer the following tests:

• Biomethane Potential (BMP)
• Anaerobic Toxicity Assay (ATA)
• Continuous Digestion

7. Biogas process technologies

Anaerobic digestion processing technologies are divided into two major families:

Wet digestion

Dry digestion.

In either case, these technologies offer either batch or continuous processes.

The process is considered wet digestion when the content of the digester is pumpable. That means that the material inside the digester has a consistency of approximately 10% dry matter or less (90% water).

There exist many configurations of wet digesters :

• Complete mix or Completely stirred tank reactor (CSTR)
• Upflow Anaerobic Sludge Blanket (UASB)
• Fixed film reactor
• Floating films reactors
• Sludge bed reactors

These configurations have been designed to optimize the process for various feedstock conditions and market applications.

The mass balance of a typical wet digestion process looks like this:

For example, 100 tonnes of solid municipal residential source separated organics (SSO) arrives at the biogas plant using wet digestion (complete mix). This feedstock needs to be pretreated to remove potential contaminants (plastics, metal, sands, etc.). Approximately 10 tonnes will be removed as contaminants and will probably be landfilled.

In order to be pumpable (10% TS), the feedstock will be diluted with water that may come from a fresh source or from a mixed of fresh and recycled water from the wastewater portion of the biogas plant. The liquid feedstock going to the digester will be approximately 250 tonnes.

In the digesters, the bacteria will consume the majority of the volatile solids in the feedstock and will convert them into biogas. Approximately 10 tonnes of gas will come out of the digesters. The more liquid digestate will represent approximately 240 tonnes.

At this point, the digestate may be applied to land directly. Please note that 100 tonnes of solid material turned into 240 tonnes of liquid and land applying the digestate in this form will present significant transportation costs.

The digestate may also be separated into a solid fraction (45 tonnes) to be land applied (or composted down to 35 tonnes) and a liquid fraction (195 tonnes) to be returned the sanitary sewage or directly back to nature.

One may be tempted to use the treated wastewater as dilution water for the input feedstock and limit the amount of water consumed and rejected by the process. It is possible only if the wastewater plant removes almost all nutrients (salts and ammonia/ammonium) in the water. Without this removal, there will be a rapid build up of nutrients in the water and this will inhibit and/or kill the anaerobic digestion process.

The process is considered dry digestion when the content of the digester is not pumpable. That means that the material inside the digester has a consistency of approximately 10% dry matter or more.

There exist many configurations of dry digesters :

• Continuous vertical
• Continuous horizontal
• Batch (Garages)

The mass balance of a typical dry digestion process

For example, 100 tonnes of solid municipal residential source separated organics (SSO) arrives at biogas plant using dry digestion (garage style). This feedstock does not need to be pretreated to remove potential contaminants (plastics, metal, sands, etc.).

In the digesters, the bacteria will consume the majority of the volatile solids in the feedstock and will convert them into biogas. Approximately 10 tonnes of gas will come out of the digesters. The solid digestate will represent approximately 90 tonnes. Note that the digestate coming out will be more liquid than the incoming material. In some cases, it may be necessary to add some bulking agent prior to digestion to ensure the out outgoing material remains solid.

In certain continuous “dry” digesters the material can come out as a thick liquid. In these instances, this liquid is still contaminated with (plastics, metals, rock, sands, etc.) and is very difficult material to recycle to land.

In our example, the solid digestate cannot be applied to land directly because the contaminants have not yet been removed. In order to remove the contaminants, the material will have to be dried enough to allow sieving without clogging the screens.

The most efficient way to dry this material is to compost it with drier material such a garden waste. Compost is a science of its own and will not be discussed here. However, we will mention that composting often required a bulking agent (25 tonnes) to ensure proper material structure complying with aerobic composting conditions. The bulking agent will be added to the tonnage of material to be sieved to achieve recycle to land quality.

The digestate may also be separated into a solid fraction (45 tonnes) to be land applied, and a liquid fraction (195 tonnes) to be returned the sanitary sewage or directly back to nature.

Here also, one may be tempted to use the treated wastewater as dilution water for the input feedstock and limit the amount of water consumed and rejected by the process. As with wet digestion, it is possible only if the wastewater plant removes almost all nutrients (salts and ammonia/ammonium) in the water. Without this removal, there will be a rapid build up of nutrients in the water and this will inhibit and/or kill the anaerobic digestion process.

Wet versus Dry digestion

As illustrated in the examples above, there is no silver bullet, and it is not true that dry digestion resolves all wastewater issues since composting plants have leachate treatment challenges of their own.

In the example above, using the wet digestion process resulted in 100 tonnes of SSO being converted into 45 tonnes of solid digestate and approximately 100 tonnes of wastewater (some recycled). The result of dry digestion process is 80 tonnes of compost recycled to land prosessed within a composting plant of equal size to the biogas plant.

In general, it is possible to remove ammonia from the wastewater the wet digestion is favored, and if the composting is possible the dry digestion is used.

8. Biogas energy

Biogas is a versatile renewable energy that can be used into direct thermal, electrical and to displace natural gas in thermal or vehicular applications.

Biogas is generated biologically from renewable biomass. Therefore, it is carbon neutral. By displacing fossil fuels with biogas energy, biogas projects achieve greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reductions that are the cornerstone of worldwide climate change mitigation strategies.

Biogas from properly functioning anaerobic digestion system is typically composed of:

• Methane (55-65%)
• Carbon dioxide (35-45%)
• H2S (100-10000 PPM)
• Water vapor (saturated at biogas temperature)
• Ammonia (traces)

Like biogas, natural gas is composed primarily of methane. Biogas is like wet natural gas diluted with carbon dioxide and other corrosive gases. Biogas from landfills will have less methane in proportion because air (nitrogen & oxygen) gets inhaled into the biogas collection system.

Biogas utilization

Each biogas application requires specific biogas conditioning and conversion equipment.

Renewable Natural Gas (RNG) or Biomethane

There exist several technologies  that allow for cleaning or upgrading the biogas into a renewable natural gas of quality suitable for injection into the gas grid.

These technologies are:

• Adsorption or PSA
• Absorption or Organic solvent dilution

These technologies allow the removal of carbon dioxide (CO2) and other impurities (H2O, N2, H2S,  siloxanes, etc.) so that that the biomethane becomes interchangeable with conventional natural gas and can be injected safely into gas pipelines. Typically, these technologies will capture approximately 90+% of the methane in the biogas (loss of 10% of less) and will bring biomethane or renewable natural gas quality to 97+% CH4.

Click here to read more on Renewable Natural Gas→

Combined Heat & Power (CHP)

In this application biogas is cleaned up to remove primarily H2S, siloxanes, and water vapor prior to being fed into an internal combustion engine (ICE) or a micro-turbine. The engine or turbine turns an electrical generator producing electricity that is injected into the electrical grid via a set of electrical protections and transformers.

In the process, the engine generates a lot of heat. Heat recovery units are added to the engine to recover exhaust gas heat and engine cooling heat to generate hot water or low-pressure steam.

Typically, a biogas CHP will convert 40% of the biogas energy into electricity, and 50% into hot water.

CHP has a typical capacity factor of 95% which means that they produce electricity steadily throughout the year (8300+ hrs/yr) making them a reliable energy production asset.

Direct thermal (boiler or furnace)

In this application, biogas may be cleaned or not (depending on H2S or siloxanes) and fed into a boiler to make hot water or steam for industrial applications. Boiler efficiency can be as high as 95%, so almost all the biogas energy gets converted into useful energy (hot water, steam or hot air).

However, natural gas equipment must be converted in order to burn biogas efficiently since biogas has less energy because it contains 40% CO2, which is not a fuel.

Note that a boiler connected to a biogas plant will produce heat 24/7 and will require a heat client with similar energy profile needs, otherwise the energy will be wasted.

Natural Gas Vehicles (NGV) applications

Natural gas vehicles exist in all sizes and shapes such as passenger cars, SUV, pickups, minivans, buses as well as light, medium and heavy-duty trucks . Currently, NGVs are not overly popular in the Americas but they are quite common in Europe and Asia. Several vehicles OEMs offer natural gas models.

Natural gas vehicles are internal combustion engine (diesel or gasoline) vehicles that are fuelled with natural gas that is stored in either high-pressure cylinders in a gaseous form (CNG: compressed natural gas) or in cryogenic tanks in a liquid form (LNG: liquefied natural gas).

There are two (2) types of natural gas engines: diesel or gas engines.

Diesel engines are modified to replace the majority of the fuel consumed with natural gas. In such modified diesel engine, the diesel is necessary to ignite the natural gas since it will not auto-ignite under pressure like diesel does.

Gas engines are essentially gasoline engines modified to burn natural gas. Natural gas is injected (like gasoline) in a proper air-to-fuel ratio to provide the right explosive mix for used in the piston.

Typically, natural gas engines (diesel or gas) are less fuel efficient (15%) than their gasoline or diesel equivalent.

There also exist dual-fuel systems that allow the user to run on either fuel or both at the same time. In the case of diesel engines, one could run on diesel only on a mixture of natural gas and diesel in different proportion depending on load. In the case of a gas engine, typically the engine can run on either gasoline or natural gas.

These dual-fuel systems are typically used to extend vehicle range and offer flexibility by allowing the use of the vehicle in regions where natural gas stations are not available.

In Canada, because it is allowed to carry heavier loads, that is why a lot of heavy-duty transportation is performed with 15-liter diesel engines (typically 500 HP). Currently, there are no 15-liter OEM heavy-duty natural gas trucks. Most heavy-duty natural gas trucks revolve around a 12-liter Cummins gas engine (400 HP).

Biogas or Natural Gas as a Fuel

Biogas cannot be used directly in compressed natural gas vehicles. Because of its corrosive components, biogas will compromise the safety of the high-pressure cylinders. Likewise, biogas cannot be liquefied without removing its H2S, CO2 and H2O otherwise it will corrode or ice up (wet and dry ice) the liquefaction process.

However, if biogas is converted to renewable natural gas (RNG) or biomethane as described above, it can thereafter be used interchangeably with natural gas to fill up natural gas vehicles .

Typically the biogas plant will inject its biomethane or RNG into the grid and the NGV station will be built somewhere along the grid. In this scenario, the grid acts as a buffer because the filling cycles are unlikely to match the steady production of a biogas plant.

Natural gas vehicles offer a 25% reduction in GHG emissions over the same application in diesel.

By using RNG or biomethane we can reduce by over 90% the GHG emissions in transportation applications.

Liquefied natural gas (LNG) is natural gas that has been cooled down to -160°C at which point it changes phases to liquefied and uses 600 times less volume.

LNG offers more energy density at 22 MJ per liter than compressed natural gas (CNG) at 9 MJ per liter @ 3600 psig. For this reason, LNG is often used for applications that require a longer range of operation like heavy-duty trucks. In comparison, diesel energy density is 36 MJ/liter.

CNG is used for all type of transportation applications but offers a shorter range of operation.

All natural gas engines use the natural gas in gaseous form at relatively low pressure.

In the case of CNG, the pressure is downgraded via a pressure regulator. Depressurizing the gas will cause it to cool substantially, that’s why it is paramount that the natural gas is very dry prior to compression to avoid icing during decompression in the vehicle fuel system.

In the case of LNG, liquefied natural gas stored in a cryogenic tank (essentially a thermos) is pumped into a vaporizer that will heat the liquefied natural gas above its boiling point (-160C) where it will turn into gas and will be fed to the engine. When the vehicle is not used the liquefied natural gas will start to boil off when the temperature in the tank goes above -160C. The boil-off is gaseous natural gas that will build pressure into the cryogenic tank (approx 100 psig). A pressure release valve will open and vent the excess gas to the atmosphere. So, LNG vehicles cannot be stored inside. Moreover, LNG vehicles should not stand still for a long period of time, otherwise, they will vent their fuel to the atmosphere and generate greenhouse gases. CNG vehicles do not have this venting/fuel losses issue.

Both technologies, CNG and LNG, have their pros and cons and the choice really depends on the application.

Nevertheless, the CNG technology is more readily adopted than LNG because of its simplicity and availability of fuel (LNG production is complex and far apart).

Natural Gas Stations

There exist three (3) types of NGV stations: LNG, CNG time-fill, and CNG fast-fill.

LNG stations are essentially composed of cryogenic tanks, pumps, dispensers and cooling systems. LNG is brought from the production plant to the station with tankers and transferred into the station cryogenic tank. The cryogenic tank is kept cool using various techniques (e.g., liquid nitrogen) to avoid boil-off of the fuel. Fuelling vehicles pull up to the dispenser and connect a hose to the cryogenic tank on the vehicles and start pumping. Displaced gaseous natural gas filling the tank is recovered by the same nozzle and sent into the station tank to ensure no venting of natural gas to the atmosphere.

CNG time-fill stations are stations that fill up the vehicles over a long period of time (ex. overnight). These stations are composed of a gas dryer, a high-power compressor, and several dispensing hoses upon which the vehicles are connected to be filled over a long period of time (10 hours) allowing for cooling of the cylinders over time as well as a truly complete fill.

CNG fast-fill stations are stations that allow for a quick fill up the vehicle equivalent to their diesel or gasoline counterparts. These stations are composed of a gas dryer, a high power compressor, high-pressure buffer cylinders (4500 psig), dispensing valves and dispensers similar to gasoline or diesel types. The vehicles pull up to the dispenser and connect the high-pressure hose to their vehicle cylinders and start filling. Initially, the pressure from the high-pressure buffer cylinders will start the fill up without the compressor and as the pressure between the station and the vehicle equilibrates the compressor will kick in to complete the fill.

As you fill up a cylinder quickly the pressure and temperature will rise. When the maximum pressure is reached (i.e., 4000 psig) the compressor will stop. But has the cylinder cools down, it will lose pressure and may settle down to 3600 psig (10% less than rated tankage).

NGV Economics

NGV vehicles cost more money than their equivalent counterpart in diesel and gasoline.

In either technology, CNG or LNG, most of the additional cost comes from the onboard storage tanks (high-pressure cylinders or cryogenic tanks).

Natural gas on the grid is abundant and cheap ($5-8/GJ). Diesel is highly fluctuating but in general significantly more expensive ($25-35/GJ).

The compression or liquefaction of the natural gas to make it NGV usable will cost an additional $5-10/GJ. Therefore, natural gas ready for NGV consumption will cost approximately $12-20/GJ after station operator’s profit. The higher end of this range will represent the cost of LNG and the lower end a large volume CNG time-fill station.

So, it appears that NGV should cost 50% less to operate than diesel or gasoline equivalent.

In reality, the additional cost of the vehicle, modifications to the garage to make it suitable for natural gas vehicle maintenance (explosion issues), incomplete fills, natural gas engine lesser efficiency all reduce this saving to approximately 25 to 30%.

So why isn’t there more NGV on the roads?

There are several factors that slow down the deployment of NGV’s, such as:

• Lack of knowledge
• Resistance to changes
• Refuelling anxiety (vehicle range)
• Lack of NGV fuelling stations
• Limited OEM vehicles offer
• NGV price tags
• Fluctuation of diesel price

There is a chicken and egg issue (stations Vs vehicles) that government with interest in biogas and/or natural gas production/distribution development and GHG reduction should resolve by providing incentives to build more stations and buy more vehicles until the industry gathers a critical mass.

Click here to use our CNG fleet savings calculator→

Biogas production versus consumption

Stable anaerobic digestion process will produce biogas steadily 24 hours per day, 365 days per year without any interruption.

The biogas energy clients must have a similar consumption profile or must provide a buffering capacity to absorb the differences between the production and consumption.

Biogas storage

Biogas is typically stored at near atmospheric pressure. Since biogas in its raw form is wet and corrosive, it cannot be stored in pressure vessels because it will cause corrosion leading to safety issues.

Pressure storage is possible only if the biogas has been upgraded to renewable natural gas pipeline specifications.

Storage at atmospheric pressure takes up a significant volume.

9. Digestate management

As illustrated in the section about Wet Versus Dry Digestion, there are essentially five (5) types of digestate:

• Clean liquid digestate
• Clean solid digestate
• Contaminated liquid digestate
• Contaminated solid digestate
• Contaminated semi-solid digestate

Only the clean liquid or solid digestates can be directly applied to land without further treatment. These digestates often originate from manure, food waste or pre-treated SSO digesters where there are virtually no contaminants in the feedstock to be digested.

Most of the time, liquid digestate is separated into solid and liquid fractions by using liquid/solid separation technologies.

Solid fraction

As mentioned earlier, clean solid digestate can be applied to land directly.

Contaminated solids coming from a dry digester or a liquid/solid separation equipment will need to be composted to achieve proper dryness for the sieving of contaminants prior to land application.

Liquid fraction

Also mentioned earlier, clean liquid digestate can be applied to land directly.

Contaminated liquids coming from a wet digester or a liquid/solid separation equipment will require proper wastewater treatment such as sedimentation of suspended solids, abatement of COD, BOD and ammonia compounds.

10. Biogas plant components

Several aspects need to be studied in the choice of a site:

• Dominant wind/Air dispersion
• Road access
• Proximity to energy grids
• Geotechnical
• Contamination
• Proximity of neighbors

The biogas plant will be equipped with roads, scale, drainage, landscaping, etc.

Biogas plants will have one or more building(s) to contain the process and all the human resources operating and maintaining it. These building may require special architectural specifications for aesthetic, comfort and efficiency.

This is the area of the biogas plant where the feedstock is received. It may be designed to receive several trucks of various sizes. Typically, the reception of material will be indoor, and this is where most of the odor challenges arise. Opening and closing of doors for trucks is typically the main source of odors for a biogas plant.

Feedstock conditioning

Depending on the technology used, this is where the received material is prepared for feeding into digesters. It may be decontaminated by using technologies such as:

• Hydro-pulpers
• Separating hammermills

Anaerobic digestion

Central equipment of a biogas plant, the digester is where feedstock is biodegraded by anaerobic bacterias to generate the biogas and digestate.

Digestate treatment

Separation : The liquid digestate may be squeezed to separate the liquid fraction from the solids.

Composting : A biogas plant may be equipped with a composting plant to stabilize or allow the drying and decontamination of the solid fraction of its digestate.

Wastewater treatment: The liquid fraction of the digestate often needs to be treated prior to disposal into nature or into sewage.

Odour treatment

Odors generated inside the building need to be controlled (with proper ventilation) and treated prior to rejection into the atmosphere.

Biogas handling

The following list includes all the equipment necessary to handle the biogas:

• Condensate traps

Biogas treatment

Equipment necessary to clean the biogas to the proper specifications for the intended application.

Equipment that will allow utilization of the biogas or biomethane (RNG) as follows:

• Biogas upgrader

11. Biogas project economics

Biogas plant economics are complex and vary with local market conditions.

Biogas plants can generate several revenues such as:

• Treatment fees : Money you receive (or save) for accepting and treating the feedstock. In North America, this represents the majority of the income of the project (60-80%).
• Energy sales : Money you receive for selling the biogas energy (20-40% of income). Only in markets with generous feed-in-tariffs will the energy sales constitute the majority of the project income.
• Digestate/compost sales : Money you receive (or save) for selling your digestate or compost. Typically, you have to pay to dispose of the digestate or compost.
• Carbon credits : Biogas plants do generate carbon credits that can be sold. However, the volume is small, and the validation and certification fees often take the lion’s share of this income.

Biogas plants are financed using equity, debt, subsidies and tax credits. Municipalities will finance their project with subsidies and debt. Private projects will require significant equity (25%) and energy contracts from solid clients to secure their debt.

Operational expenses (OPEX) are typically composed of:

• Debt service charges
• Disposal charges (contaminants, digestate)
• Energy (consumed)
• Equipment maintenance
• Consumables

Capital expenses (CAPEX) vary greatly between projects.

Municipal projects are the most complex and expensive. Typically, in North America, they cost anywhere between $800-$1500/tonne of annual treatment capacity.

Agricultural projects are the simplest and least expensive. Typically, in North America, they cost anywhere between $4500-8000/kW electrical installed.

12. Biogas project development

There exist several critical steps in the realization of a successful biogas project, though project developers tend to focus their effort on determining the best anaerobic digestion technology for their project instead of getting a firm grip on their project fundamentals before anything else.

Biogas plants are large expensive finicky biological systems that require careful planning. In fact, most biogas plant failures are due to poor planning and/or not paying close enough attention to project fundamentals such as feedstock, energy utilization, digestate management, and financing.

Studies & Preliminary Engineering

A lot of work must be put into establishing the project fundamentals (studies).

Establishing expected feedstock collection methods (trucks, bins, routes, etc.), quantity, quality and overall logistics (collection contracts, transfer stations, hours of reception, etc.) often require significant studies and planning. One must not underestimate the effort necessary to understand how much, when, and in what state the organic waste will get to the biogas plant.

Finding a proper site for a biogas plant also requires significant effort. The site needs to meet proper zoning, and environmental regulations (proximity to houses, rivers, wells, etc.). The site must also be easily accessible by road for the feedstock to come in, and the digestate to come out without causing too much traffic nuisance to the neighborhood. Finally, the site must be close an energy grid (gas or electrical) in order for the biogas energy to be exported efficiently.

Digestate management must be studied carefully since the disposal of digestate is often the largest operational cost of a biogas plant. All possible avenues of disposal, transformation or treatment must be taken into consideration to ensure that the final strategy for digestate management is the most efficient. Otherwise, the biogas plant economics will be less than optimal.

Once the fundamentals are established, a concept will be drawn and priced to get a project budget.

Beyond this initial engineering concept, further studies and analysis are often required as follows:

• Site contamination (soil, buildings, etc.)
• Risks analysis
• Value analysis
• Applicable codes, rules and regulations
• Timeline estimation

Proper preliminary engineering is essential to develop a viable business case that will justify the significant financing required to realize the biogas project.

Detailed engineering of a biogas project is composed of several disciplines working in close collaboration such as:

Project Management

To ensure that all engineering disciplines are working together closely to efficiently deliver an optimal design.

Process Engineering

To determine the processes required for feedstock conditioning, anaerobic digestion, gas treatment, digestate treatment, odor management, etc.

Mechanical Engineering

To deal with all aspect of material handling: solid waste reception & conveying, liquid pumping, gas compression, etc.

Electrical Engineering

To deal with all aspects of power supply and automation (sensors, PLCs and actuators).

Civil Engineering

To handle excavation, filling, and utility services (drainage, sewer, water, etc.).

Structural Engineering

To ensure foundations are safe and sound to support the structural load of the building bearing the process equipment.

Building Mechanical Engineering

To handle all aspects of ventilation, fire protection, lighting, non-process electricity and plumbing.

Architecture

To handle all technical and visual aspects of the site and buildings.

Detailed engineering is performed to generate drawings and establish specifications for all the components of the biogas plant. The design must obviously comply with local codes and regulations.

Permitting & Energy Contracting

Once the drawings and specifications are completed, the project must obtain all necessary permits for construction. Depending on the jurisdiction, there are usually several different authorizations required from local municipalities and environmental agencies.

In parallel, an energy contract should be negotiated with the local energy provider. These contracts can be technically and legally complex and will require proper technical and legal support.

Do not underestimate the time required to perform permitting and/or negotiate an energy contract with energy providers.

Financing will only occur if the project is permitted and if there is a serious client for the biogas energy.

Equity and guarantees will be demanded by financiers. Due diligence will be performed on the design, the clients, the management, risk analysis, etc.

Only upon satisfying all these answers will the project funding be confirmed.

Procurement

Purchasing the products and services to realize the design. Typically, the procurement of the plant will be broken down into several contracts, such as:

• Site decontamination
• Civil works
• Foundations/concrete work
• Quality control labs (materials)
• Building structure
• Building envelope
• Building mechanicals
• Process equipment (digesters, gas upgrader, hydropulper, conveyors, etc.)
• Mechanical installation
• Construction management
• Engineering supervision

Public entities, such as a municipality, will often issue a request for proposals (RFP) for a design-build (DB) or a design-build-operate (DBO) so that all these procurement contracts are performed by the chosen contractor. Municipal procurement is often cumbersome and slow, thus one should expect significant potential delays in the realization of the biogas project.

Construction

Once all the permits are granted and the financing obtained, the procurement and construction can begin.

Proper construction management, supervised the general contractor, is essential to ensure that procurement and the execution of the various contracts are well timed to avoid construction conflicts and unnecessary delays.

Engineering supervision is necessary to ensure that the constructions are in accordance with the design.

Construction sites must be managed properly to ensure security and safety of the workforce. The site must be able to accommodate temporary services (electricity, sanitation, accommodations, etc.) as well as material and equipment reception (laydown) and storage.

Commissioning

Upon completion of the various phases of the biogas project, pre-operational verifications must be performed to ensure that all equipment was properly installed. At this point in time, a partial acceptance of the biogas plant can be granted so that the various contractors can get paid.

After verification, the anaerobic digestion process may be started. There must be a proper coordination with the feedstock collectors to ensure they can sufficiently and efficiently supply the process with the feedstock.

Upon achievement of the performance of the biogas plant, a final acceptance may be granted to pay the balance of suppliers and officially begin the operation of the biogas plant.

Day-to-day operation of the biogas plant includes the following tasks:

Reception of Material

Operators will coordinate the logistics of feedstock arrival, perform visual inspection of the received material, and log tonnages received.

Conditioning of Material

Operators will transfer the material from the reception to the conditioning equipment.

Anaerobic Digestion Process Control

Operators will operate and monitor the various aspects of the anaerobic digestion process, such as temperature, OLR, FOS/TAC, pH, etc.

Operation of Digestate Treatment System

Operators will attend to the dewatering, drying, and water treatment processes.

Operation of Wastewater Process

Operators will ensure that the water treatment process is functional.

Disposal of Contaminants

Operators will manage the logistics and disposal of all contaminants generated by the process.

Operation of Composting Process (if there is)

Operators will operate and monitor the various aspects of the composting process.

Disposal of Digestate/Compost

Operators will manage the disposal of the digestate/compost.

Maintenance

Biogas plants are equipped with multiple equipment that must be maintained to remain optimally functional throughout their entire planned life cycle.

Also, operators must establish and perform preventive maintenance on the equipment.

Unplanned maintenance and repairs are also to be expected and required daily.

Optimization

Optimization of the biogas plant may be achieved by performing modifications to improve processes or performance.

Nowadays, online documents are constant work in progress that can be re-edited at a click of a button. In this new world, the concept of afterword is somehow obsolete. However, I would like to say that writing the first version of this handbook has procured me a lot of satisfaction and I hope I will derive the same feeling trying to make it progress over time to make it become a work of reference used by all getting on the trail to the development of a productive biogas plant.

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Business modelling in farm-based biogas production: towards network-level business models and stakeholder business cases for sustainability

• Original Article
• Open access
• Published: 01 June 2018
• Volume 14 , pages 1071–1090, ( 2019 )

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• Niklas P.E. Karlsson 1 ,
• Maya Hoveskog 1 ,
• Fawzi Halila 1 &
• Marie Mattsson 1  

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Farm-based biogas production is a promising renewable energy technology with the potential for creating sustainable economic, environmental, and social value. However, Swedish farmers engaged in this activity struggle to turn a profit because of high-investment costs and severe price competition with fossil fuels. One way to address this situation is to re-organize the activity by innovating the business model (BM) towards sustainability. In this study, a team of researchers took an action research approach that proposed solutions for the financial difficulties at a farm cooperative that intended to develop its farm-based biogas production. Two participatory workshops (including researchers, producers, students, and consultants) were conducted using the sustainable business-modelling tool called the Flourishing Business Canvas (FBC). Based on the 215 ideas developed in the workshops, five sustainable BM prototypes were created. These five prototypes form the basis of an approach for initiating the development of a network-level BM for sustainability that highlights its superiority over a single-firm BM. The network-level BM’s main advantage in the farm-based biogas context is its strong focus on stakeholder collaboration that supports the development of a stakeholder business case for sustainability. Overall, this study highlights the usefulness of the network concept in the practice of sustainable BM development. Collaborative business modelling for developing network-level BMs that address environmental and social problems for and with stakeholders can be an effective way to increase long-term financial profit and promote the growth of a firm, a network, or an industry.

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Introduction

The European Union’s research and innovation framework, Horizon 2020, highlights activities aimed at dealing with various societal challenges. These activities relate to renewable energy production, sustainable agriculture, and climate change (European Commission 2011 ). The renewable energy technology behind farm-based biogas production, under the right conditions, can help to meet these challenges.

Farm-based biogas from organic farm waste can create green energy, develop the circular economy in rural areas, and promote local possibilities for sustainable growth (Boulamanti et al. 2013 ). Previous research (Bergh 2013 ; Karlsson et al. 2017 ) lists the success factors related to Swedish farm-based biogas. However, some farmers engaged in biogas production, such as certain farmers in Sweden, have experienced financial difficulties that hamper the development of the activity (Fallde and Eklund 2015 ). As Lantz ( 2013 ) found in research on biogas production in Sweden, production, distribution, and marketing barriers (e.g., high-investment costs, restricted markets, falling prices, and short-term subsidies) are the primary problems with realizing farm-based biogas production as a profitable business activity. Given these financial difficulties, Swedish farmers may need to change their business models (BM) as they create, deliver, and capture value (Amit and Zott 2012 ) in the production of biogas.

There are different ideas about on what a BM actually is. Traditionally, a BM is defined as a conceptual tool that consists of a set of elements and relationships that express a company’s logic for earning money (e.g., Osterwalder and Pigneur 2010 ; Teece 2010 ). Zott and Amit ( 2010 ), who take an activity system perspective, view the BM as a network (i.e., a system of interdependent activities that helps a firm create value by working with its partners). The emerging view is that BMs should take a network-centric perspective rather than a single-firm-centric perspective (Evans et al. 2017 ). Such network-level BMs may unlock new competences, open new markets, and advance unique value propositions (Lindgren et al. 2010 ; Palo and Tähtinen 2013 ).

In line with the network-centric perspective, previous research (e.g., Negro et al. 2007 ; Negro and Hekkert 2008 ; Vernay et al. 2013 ) has addressed the benefits of BM collaboration in farm-based biogas production when networked firms co-create value using shared resources, knowledge, and experience. Such agricultural networks can promote individual farmers’ interests as well as the interests of other stakeholders (e.g., suppliers of feedstock and transporters of digestate). In addition, these networks, which can also promote society’s sustainability interests, may result in more government support for farmers (e.g., price support) and new ways of using the existing resources, reducing costs, and increasing profit (Amer and Bolwig 2013 ; Ericsson et al. 2013 ; Hellström et al. 2015 ; Martin 2015 ). To capitalize on these benefits, a change in perspective is needed—from value creation at the single-firm level to value co-creation at the network level. This change requires development of a network-level BM shared by firms and their stakeholders.

Designing a new or modified activity system and recombining the firm’s (and its stakeholders’) resources through innovating a BM can be crucial in making radical improvements that enhance the sustainable performance of BMs in which greater environmental and social value is created and economic sustainability is delivered (Stubbs and Cocklin 2008 ). Consequently, researchers, including Hall and Wagner ( 2012 ) and Boons and Lüdeke-Freund ( 2013 ), call for more research on the integration of sustainability in firms’ BMs. More specifically, the traditional BM view of value creation for customers and shareholders should shift to a view that supports value creation for and with a broader range of stakeholders, i.e., developing and realizing a stakeholder business case for sustainability (Schaltegger et al. 2017 ). This need is especially relevant in the farm-based biogas industry where it is necessary to significantly improve long-term financial viability.

To that end, firms may find it advantageous to engage in collaborative business modelling (Karlsson et al. 2018 ). Business modelling, especially in the sustainability context with its systems perspective, is a complex, collective, and co-creational activity that emphasizes active social participation and interaction (Demil and Lecocq 2015 ). In collaborative situations, business modelling can lead to new insights and can support the collaborating actors’ sustainability policies and practices while simultaneously highlighting strong and weak areas in their BMs.

In summary, addressing the current financial difficulties for the Swedish farm-based biogas industry through simultaneous creation of environmental and social value requires systematic collaboration in an extended network of farmers and their stakeholders. The aim of this study is, therefore, to propose an empirically based approach for the identification and engagement of relevant stakeholders in firms’ development of network-level BMs aimed at promoting sustainability and profitability. More specifically, this paper addresses the following research question: How can business modelling initiate the transition towards a network-level BM that can realize farm-based biogas production as a stakeholder business case for sustainability to overcome its financial difficulties? The setting of the study is a Swedish, farm-based biogas cooperative that has encountered difficulties in its early development stage. The cooperative needs help in overcoming these difficulties. The primary data for the study were collected in two ideation workshops.

The rest of the paper is structured as follows. Section “ Theoretical background ” presents the theoretical background and the relevant concepts for the study. Section “ Method ” presents the paper’s research method. Section “ Sigma - the biogas-producing farm cooperative ” presents the case on which the research is based. Section “ Results ” presents the findings from the ideation workshops and the network-level BM approach. Section “ Discussion ” discusses the results and contributions of this research, including the theoretical and managerial implications and suggestions for future research. Section “ Conclusions ” presents the conclusions.

Theoretical background

Network-level business models for sustainability.

A BM can be defined as a unit of analysis that describes firm’s activities (Amit and Zott 2001 ). Others describe the BM as a holistic concept that presents the various components of a firm’s activities that propose, create, deliver, and capture value (Bocken et al. 2014 ; Chesbrough and Rosenbloom 2002 ; Demil and Lecocq 2010 ; Morris et al. 2005 ; Osterwalder and Pigneur 2010 ). Osterwalder et al. ( 2005 ) describe how the BM concept is commonly used: (1) to interact with suppliers, customers, and partners; and (2) to reduce business complexity to a comprehensible level. Therefore, a BM has a set of components that expresses a firm’s business logic. Traditionally, a BM focuses on the organization and infrastructure of the firm’s supply chain and customer relationships. A traditional BM also takes a single-firm focus as it emphasizes economic value while neglecting environmental and social value (Joyce and Paquin 2016 ), thus undermining the realization of economic, environmental, and social growth (i.e., sustainability) (Schaltegger et al. 2016a ).

With the intention of identifying, forming, and/or acting upon business opportunities, firms establish relationships and collaborative arrangements such as networks (Bessant and Francis 1999 ). Relationships are often established in a network that produce both tangible and intangible values through dynamic exchanges between two or more individuals, groups, or organizations, whether in the public or the private sector (Allee 2011 ). Networks are thus commonly used to seek potential partners for collaborative BM development intended to achieve individual and joint goals (Lindgren et al. 2010 ; Österle et al. 2001 ) such as sustainable value creation.

The literature shows that firms in networks are more successful in producing sustainable value than stand-alone firms (e.g., Johnson and Suskewicz 2009 ; Rohrbeck et al. 2013 ). The main reason for such success is the networked firms’ explicit focus on the holistic, stakeholder perspective. This perspective not only benefits customers and firms (shareholders) but also the overall system in which the BM is embedded (Schaltegger et al. 2016a ). As a result, the networked BM can enhance value creation and capture aspects of the system more readily than the single-firm BM that supports the traditional (profit-first) definition of corporate success (Lüdeke-Freund and Dembek 2017 ). Given this perspective, the research on sustainable BMs increasingly takes a network-level approach that embraces the system dynamics perspective on the embeddedness of BMs in society and their relationship to their environments (Rauter et al. 2017 ; Upward and Jones 2016 ).

In contrast to the traditional BM, a sustainable BM provides substantial positive and/or significantly reduced negative environmental and social impacts through changes in the way the firm and its value network create, deliver, and capture value, or in the way that they change the value propositions (Bocken et al. 2014 ). Further, Lüdeke-Freund ( 2010 ) points out that, compared to the traditional BM, the sustainable BM advances competitive advantage through producing greater customer value whilst contributing to the long-term development of the firm and providing various benefits to the public and private sectors. A sustainable BM also includes structural and cultural benefits in collaboration with a broad range of stakeholders, all of whom support economic, environmental, and social sustainability for the firm and its surroundings (Stubbs and Cocklin 2008 ).

Thus, the collaborative view of sustainable BMs extends the single-firm, traditional BM perspective to a network-level BM perspective (Abdelkafi and Täuscher 2016 ). The network-level BM, which is open-ended and dynamic, focuses on value co-creation and cost reduction. This focus requires continuing development as the environment (and even the network) changes (Bankvall et al. 2017 ). According to Palo and Tähtinen ( 2013 ), the network-level BM reflects close cooperation among the networked firms. Interactions, which are the basis of this cooperation, are, therefore, crucial in the creation of the network-level BM (Araujo et al. 2003 ).

For biogas production, a network-level BM may consist of a group of upstream suppliers (e.g., technical equipment and biological feedstock suppliers), downstream suppliers (e.g., biogas and digestate distributors and retailers), and customers (e.g., municipalities and manufacturing industries) (Huttunen et al. 2014 ). Competitive advantage and sustainable value creation in biogas production can thus be achieved by developing and supporting a joint network-level BM that connects network partners’ competencies and knowledge and supplements the firms’ individual BMs (Lindgren et al. 2010 ).

However, developing and implementing a network-level BM is a complex undertaking that requires the assistance of all network actors. They must be prepared to establish relationships, to work with others (Hellström et al. 2015 ; Möller et al. 2005 ), and to share a common vision for business development. Network-level BM activities, therefore, require that the network actors understand (and accept) change (Freytag and Clarke 2012 ). In some instances, acceptance of a network-level BM may mean individual firms lose some control over their individual BMs as they work with the network partners (Zott et al. 2011 ). Nevertheless, rethinking the firm as a network partner may facilitate the core integration and delivery of sustainable value in the long term (Evans et al. 2017 ) through close collaboration with stakeholders as they realize the business case for sustainability (Schaltegger et al. 2017 ).

The business case for sustainability

In the business case for sustainability, a firm’s economic success is realized through, not just with, environmental and social activities (Kreiss et al. 2016 ; Schaltegger et al. 2012 ). Schaltegger and Burritt ( 2015 ) report that the relation between business cases and sustainability is linked to the firm’s ethical foundations and sustainability management activities. These authors differentiate amongst four business cases for sustainability: cases that are reactionary, reputational, responsible, or collaborative. The reactionary and reputational business cases deal with sustainability opportunistically in which the main goal is the maximization of (short-term) profit (e.g., as a reaction to increased market demand for sustainability-oriented products/services or as a way to improve firm reputation and brand value to gain business benefits). In contrast, the responsible and collaborative business cases integrate sustainability as a central part of firm management to create conditions for improved organizational operations and long-term business success. Developing joint business cases through close collaboration with stakeholders offers networked firms the opportunity to enhance their social and environmental well-being as well as sustain their financial viability.

Schaltegger et al. ( 2017 ) further emphasize the importance of stakeholder involvement in business cases for sustainability. In their stakeholder theory perspective on business cases for sustainability, they propose that a stakeholder business case for sustainability explicitly aims at value creation for and by stakeholders. This goal can be achieved with business activities that effectively respond to a sustainability problem (e.g., climate change) in a way that creates value for stakeholders involved in the problem solution as well as for other stakeholders who are affected by the problem. It is thus important to involve all stakeholders early in the development of business cases for sustainability, so that the potential consequences of the proposed business activities can be identified. Researchers who have studied the collaborative development of the stakeholder business case for sustainability have found that business modelling is an important facilitator of its success (Geissdoerfer et al. 2016 ; Joyce and Paquin 2016 ; Karlsson et al. 2018 ; Schaltegger et al. 2016b ).

• Business modelling

Realizing sustainable value co-creation for and with a wide range of partners and stakeholders is a challenging task. However, the use of business modelling has been shown to be effective in managing the task (Geissdoerfer et al. 2016 ; Joyce and Paquin 2016 ; Karlsson et al. 2018 ). Business modelling can be defined as the creative process of experimenting with BM elements in which innovative BMs that create, deliver, and capture value in new ways are identified (Aversa et al. 2015 ). The primary goal of business modelling for sustainability is to develop a new and sustainable BM that creates, delivers, and captures value that makes sense to all stakeholders (Bocken et al. 2014 ). Teece ( 2010 ) states that business modelling encourages discussions and visualizations related to new value creation/value capture systems at the conceptual level. He also claims that business modelling works particularly well in unpredictable situations.

Because of uncertainties and risks in terms of time and resource limitations in the innovation of BMs, it is commonly recognized that firms hesitate to test new or modified BMs in the real world (Evans et al. 2017 ). Business modelling provides an inexpensive and low-risk solution to this problem, because it allows researchers and practitioners to acquire stakeholder input on the BM development via the development of BM prototypes. The prototypes, which promote objective decision-making and strategy formulation, are used for experimentation and visualization of a new and sustainable BM that creates, delivers, and captures value for all stakeholders (Bocken et al. 2014 ; Seidenstricker et al. 2014 ). According to Upward and Jones ( 2016 ), a visual representation of a sustainable BM prototype uses a common language that is especially effective for promoting effective collaboration and shared understanding of the factors a firm considers in setting its goals.

Rohrbeck et al. ( 2013 ) and Bocken et al. ( 2013 ) report that business modelling can be facilitated by the use of collaborative business-modelling tools. The two most widely used tools developed to support business modelling by practitioners and researchers are the Business Model Canvas (Osterwalder and Pigneur 2010 ), and its derivative, the Value Proposition Canvas (Osterwalder et al. 2014 ), that focuses on the value proposition element (Hanshaw and Osterwalder 2015 ). However, these tools take a single-firm perspective and are limited to traditional business modelling that primarily focuses on customer value and profit maximization. As a result, the single dimension (economic value) of the Business Model Canvas and Value Proposition Canvas makes them unsuitable for generating sustainable BMs in which the full stakeholder network (e.g., suppliers, local companies, municipalities, and society) is integrated in a holistic perspective.

Several visual business modelling tools have been designed for use in the development of sustainable BMs and BM prototypes. These tools integrate a firm’s economic, environmental, and social concerns taking a network perspective. The Value-Mapping Tool (Bocken et al. 2013 ), the Triple Layered Business Model Canvas (Joyce and Paquin 2016 ), and the Flourishing Business Canvas (FBC) (Upward and Jones 2016 ) are three sustainable business-modelling tools that primarily aim to stimulate idea generation, discussion, and facilitation of a network perspective on BMs and sustainability.

To summarize, our study builds on the following theoretical knowledge. The traditional view of a BM is that it can be used to manage a firm’s supply chain and customer relationships and to maximize its profit, often to the detriment of environmental and social interests. While sustainability is not normally considered in this traditional business logic, experience has shown that business sustainability and sustainable BMs can contribute to the combined growth of economic, environmental, and social values. The design and implementation of a sustainable BM and the realization of a stakeholder business case for sustainability require increased cooperation and changes in the way firms and their stakeholders create, deliver, and capture value. Business modelling and BM prototype development can, if facilitated by a sustainable business-modelling tool, support the shift from value creation at the single-firm level to sustainable value co-creation at the network level via a joint BM shared by firms and their stakeholders. Such network-level BMs have a significant advantage over individual firms’ BMs as far as promoting sustainable value creation.

Research approach

In this study, we take an inductive approach (Goddard and Melville 2004 ). Thus, we collected our empirical data without hypotheses and preconceptions on how the study would evolve. This approach increased the possibilities of discovering intriguing and new findings beyond preset knowledge and relationships (Robson and McCartan 2015 ). Our research followed a trajectory from the particular (i.e., a Swedish farm cooperative; hereafter Sigma) to the general (i.e., other cooperatives and similar organizations).

Research on joint BMs and sustainability in the Swedish farm-based biogas industry is still at an early stage. Therefore, we used qualitative research methods in our study, because the exploration of BMs in this context involves various actors, resources, and activities intertwined in complex and interdependent relationships (Evans et al. 2017 ). Creswell and Creswell ( 2017 ) claim that it is appropriate to conduct qualitative research in dealing with such complexity and with unfolding sequences and stages in relationships and collaborative actions in which in-depth knowledge is required. Use of qualitative research methods allows the researcher to describe how people experience particular events and situations as well as describe the variations and relationships among the actors (Robson and McCartan 2015 ). In addition, qualitative research allows deep interaction with the subjects of interest and promotes flexibility in the interaction with actors (Rowlands 2005 ).

In taking the inductive approach and in using qualitative research methods in our study, we expect to increase our knowledge of the collaborative development of the network-level BM and the stakeholder business case for sustainability. Because our research theoretically addresses business modelling for developing a network-level BM for sustainability and finding solutions to the practical issue of low profitability at a biogas-producing farm cooperative, the action research approach is also suitable for our study.

Action research

In action research, the researcher works in a “community of practice” to solve a social or organizational problem (Shani et al. 2012 ). According to Shani and Pasmore ( 1985 ), action research is a research method that focuses on conducting the research process with those whose life and actions are studied. Action research is research in action rather than research about action. It emphasizes the generation of useful knowledge co-produced in the local context with practitioners (Susman and Evered 1978 ). As a method for sequencing events and solving problems, action research allows the researcher to simultaneously study a practical problem, propose solutions, and produce scientific knowledge (Shani and Pasmore 1985 ).

Using action research, we worked closely with representatives from Sigma to initiate and facilitate the development of a network-level BM for sustainability. With a joint network-level BM, the farmers and their stakeholders might benefit from each other’s experiences and knowledge, and might co-create value aimed at establishing a profitable biogas production system that contributes to sustainable, regional development. In contrast with retrospective studies often found in BM research, our use of action research facilitates the study of an existing BM and the attempts to modify it or to craft a new one. According to Demil and Lecocq ( 2015 ), action research is a rare and promising approach for informing researchers and managers about the difficulties of implementing changes in the existing and prospective BMs as well as limiting the biases of retrospective studies.

In an action research study of a network or cooperative (such as Sigma), researchers use the plurality of experiences and the capacity in the network as a way to enrich the research process (Shani and Pasmore 1985 ). Therefore, the researchers for this study (with reference to its theoretical framework) and the Sigma representatives (with reference to their BM development problems) jointly planned, implemented, and evaluated the research process with the intention of producing useful results. The goal was to develop a network-level BM for sustainability that addressed Sigma’s organizational problems. Therefore, as participants rather than independent observers of the research (Middel et al. 2006 ), we acquired knowledge of Sigma’s social and organizational issues otherwise unavailable had we used the traditional research methods (Coughlan and Coghlan 2002 ). In addition, Bergold and Thomas ( 2012 ) report that our approach enables researchers to put familiar routines and forms of interactions aside as they challenge and rethink established interpretations of situations and strategies.

Action research has several research advantages. It focuses on a range of research activities such as planning, theorizing, exploring, and learning. In this research and learning process, the researcher’s long-term relationship with studied phenomena offers a promising opportunity for identifying contextually and theoretically well-grounded research findings (Susman and Evered 1978 ). Moreover, it is unnecessary in an action research study to rely on the second-hand narratives (e.g., questionnaires and surveys) (Coughlan and Coghlan 2002 ) because of the researcher’s proximity to the studied phenomena.

The flourishing business canvas

The use of the collaborative FBC tool (Fig.  1 ) in our study facilitated the collection of primary data through the first-hand observation and interaction. The FBC, which is a significant extension of the widely used and purely profit-focused Business Model Canvas, identifies and describes the fundamental characteristics of BMs conceptualized in the context of real-world economic, environmental, and social systems (Elkington and Upward 2016 ). The FBC components—(1) three contextual systems, (2) four perspectives, and (3) sixteen building blocks—are both necessary and sufficient to describe a sustainable BM. The three contextual systems are the environment (the planet, all life, and all associated processes), society (people as individuals and groups), and the economy (revenues, costs, and profit). The four perspectives are process, people, value, and outcomes. The sixteen building blocks are topics intended to provoke stakeholder questions about a firm’s current or future BM. The responses to these sixteen questions are used to describe and design the BM elements for any firm—past, present, or future, irrespective of the firm’s goals. Thus, the FBC provides a consistent way for a firm and its stakeholders to capture the results of its business-modelling efforts (Upward and Jones 2016 ).

The flourishing business Canvas v2 (© Antony Upward/Edward James Consulting Ltd). All rights reserved. http://www.FlourishingBusiness.org . Used with permission

The FBC is the only such tool that can provide the required holistic visual expression of a shared understanding of the frame within which the firm and its stakeholders co-create sustainable BMs (Upward and Davies 2018 ). The use of the FBC contributes to individual and shared learning about integrated business sustainability, thereby increasing the possibility that firms and stakeholders co-create outcomes aligned with that knowledge. In so doing, use of the FBC overcomes one of the main weaknesses of the Business Model Canvas and Value Proposition Canvas tools: the neglect of the networked nature of value co-creation and the importance of all stakeholders’ interests (Äyväri and Jyrämä 2017 ). The FBC can thus create consensus amongst a group of people who are working together by motivating them to engage in broader and deeper conversations about the topic at hand, furthering creativity and innovation.

Upward and Davies ( 2018 ) report three main advantages of the FBC compared to other business-modelling tools. First, using questions, the FBC systematically helps the actors to learn about every aspect of a sustainable BM—both existing and future—and the connections of the firm to its economic, social, and environmental contexts. These questions are useful for identifying the various risks and opportunities—whether these arise individually from economic, social, or environmental contexts or from some combination of the three. Second, the FBC, which facilitates recording of the responses to the building block questions, offers a consistent way of documenting the business modelling work. These responses are the narrative elements of the BM stories that the firm and its stakeholders think relevant to the firm at present and in the future. Third, once the collective understanding of an existing or future BM using the consistent structure of the canvas is established, the FBC creates trust among actors, which can facilitate the collaboration on other activities.

Data collection

Our primary data were collected in March and April of 2016 at a Board of Directors meeting and at two collaborative ideation workshops. We were participants at the board meeting where development issues for Sigma were discussed. We also participated in the workshops attended by Sigma participants (board members and other individuals) and by external participants (university students, researchers, and consultants). All workshop participants worked with the FBC in the formulation of new ideas and possible solutions related to the future development of Sigma’s BM.

We took notes on our observations at the board meeting. We audio-recorded the workshops, took more notes, and collected other materials (primarily the FBCs). We also collected secondary data (reports, documents, articles, and website information) that complemented and validated our primary data (Robson and McCartan 2015 ). Table  1 summarizes our data collection.

Board of Directors meeting

We introduced ourselves at the Board of Directors meeting and described our study. We presented the BM, the business-modelling concepts, and the FBC tool. We explained how sustainable BM prototypes could be used to develop a network-level BM. We asked questions about Sigma’s development plans. Ten board members and two external consultants with specific interests in Sigma attended the 3 h meeting.

The two ideation workshops

A workshop can be an effective way to gather a large amount of diverse data on a single occasion (Graham et al. 2015 ). Therefore, our aim in the two workshops was to collect ideas on how Sigma might develop in the future. We planned and conducted the workshops jointly with a Sigma board member. Together, we evaluated the ideas produced in the workshops. In selecting the workshop participants, we followed Frankenberger et al.’s ( 2013 ) advice on the need to select participants capable of out-of-the-box thinking when generating ideas. The workshops lasted 4 h each.

The aim of Workshop 1 (March 2016) was to generate ideas for sustainable BM prototypes on how Sigma could overcome its current organizational inertia to develop its biogas activity. The participants were the four researchers, the Sigma board representative, and 41 undergraduate Business Administration students from Halmstad University, Sweden. The researchers were the workshop “facilitators”; the students were the “problem-owners” and “problem-solvers”; the Sigma Board representative was the “knowledge provider” and “utility evaluator”. The premise of the workshop was that Sigma required a new and comprehensive network-level BM. The participants, who had no biogas production knowledge, were not constrained by preconceived ideas about biogas production and sale. We wanted to exploit their “outside-the-box thinking” so as to generate novel ideas.

The aim of Workshop 2 (April 2016) was to develop sustainable BM prototypes using the FBC and to evaluate the results from Workshop 1. The 22 participants were the four researchers, five Sigma Board members (including the Sigma Board representative from Workshop 1), eleven other Sigma members, and two consultants with expertise in biogas development. The researchers were the “facilitators” and “knowledge providers”; the Sigma members and consultants were the “problem-owners”, “problem-solvers”, and “utility evaluators”. We summarized the results from Workshop 1 at the beginning of Workshop 2. The participants were quite familiar with biogas production in general and with Sigma in particular.

Data analysis

The workshops produced 362 ideas related to the sixteen FBC building blocks. A Sigma board member and the researchers eliminated 147 ideas as too broad or repetitive. The 215 remaining ideas were then analyzed and visualized as five sustainable BM prototypes (Figs.  2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 ). These prototypes represent the main findings from the data set. We began our analysis by textualizing our participatory observations, conversations, and experiences. We then analyzed our empirical data—the workshop transcripts and materials, our board meeting notes, and other documents. We looked for repeated patterns such as actions, events, words, or phrases (Robson and McCartan 2015 ). In analyzing the data, we developed and applied codes (i.e., words or short phrases that represented an overall theme). Assigning the codes, meaningful titles facilitated the identification of patterns that underpin significant concepts (Goddard and Melville 2004 ) indicated by the ideas. Based on these concepts (e.g., improved marketing and communication and greater profitability through sustainability), we created the five prototypes which are overall representations of the main findings from the data set.

To create a shared understanding of the data as recommended in the action research approach (Shani et al. 2012 ), at least two researchers were present throughout the entire research process. Their continued presence was useful for the discussions on individual observations and analyses. Moreover, other researchers, who were knowledgeable about the study but were not involved in the data collection, contributed their analyses. Their analyses complemented and validated other researchers’ analyses.

Sigma—the biogas-producing farm cooperative

Sigma, a Swedish agricultural cooperative, is a for-profit entity, owned and operated by its 36 members. Sigma produces farm-based biogas from manure and farm waste. Although Sigma’s members work together in the cooperative, they lack a common BM. Thus, to some extent, the members have a single-firm business logic instead of a network-level business logic. In the Sigma case, we investigated how to unify these members in the development of a network-level BM. Sigma was founded following a pilot study that was conducted in 2009 in an agricultural region in the south of Sweden. The pilot study identified farmers’ interest in farm-based biogas production in the region where Sigma is located and their willingness to form a cooperative. Of the 36 founding members, 32 are farmers and 4 members are consultants and other interested stakeholders. Initially, 25 farmers planned to construct biogas plants. The raw biogas (55–65% methane) produced would be upgraded to biomethane (97% methane) and sold as vehicle fuel.

However, for various reasons, Sigma has not been as successful with the biogas activity as expected. One major reason is the lack of funds for an upgrading facility. This facility is needed to convert raw biogas into biomethane, so it can be injected into the Swedish national gas grid that burns natural gas. Sigma has thus failed to attract large customers such as energy companies and municipalities. Furthermore, biogas electricity must compete with cheaper electricity from other sources. Today, three Sigma members produce biogas for heat and electricity but only for their own use.

Given its lack of economic success, at present, ten Sigma members (including some board members) are working on a new organizational strategy for the cooperative. One plan is to build additional plants that would link to the local gas grid that could then transport the raw biogas to a common upgrading facility. However, this idea is still in the planning stage. Sigma recognizes that more changes are needed to realize this plan. The farmers want to develop their traditional farming activities (their current BMs) by improving the existing biogas production and by developing new business concepts aimed at future biogas expansion. Sigma’s main goal for the future is, therefore, to develop a joint network-level BM for sustainability that combines the main farming activities and the expanded farm-based biogas production.

Ideas on business model development

Table  2 presents the 215 ideas related to the sixteen building blocks in the FBC. Three building blocks—goals, benefits, and stakeholders—received the most ideas: 23, 24, and 21, respectively.

The 23 ideas in the Goals building block focus on the delivery of economic value to Sigma and social and environmental values to its external stakeholders. To achieve financial profitability, the workshop participants proposed that Sigma create a new company image/brand by identifying new customers and investors, by creating a sales/marketing position, and by developing new and effective ways of communicating with the existing and prospective customers. They proposed that social and environmental values might be achieved with the use of organic and sustainable farming practices and by the promotion of biogas as vehicle fuel.

The 24 ideas in the Benefits building block focus on the acquisition of new skills in sustainable food and energy production, on effective waste management that complements the traditional farming activities, on increased resource efficiency, on sustainability outcomes such as job creation, a reduced environmental impact, and the promotion of renewable energy. Another identified benefit was the knowledge and experience acquired from developing a long-term vision for the integration of biogas production with other farming activities.

The 21 ideas in the Stakeholders building block focus on the collaboration with local authorities, municipalities, banks, other farmers, energy companies, and NGOs (e.g., environmental groups and green associations). Collaboration with these external stakeholders, combined with partnerships with other firms, may result in investment subsidies, access to new customers, and exchanges of skills and experience.

Five sustainable business model prototypes

The first BM prototype, “marketing and communication” (Fig.  2 ), mainly focuses on making Sigma more visible through increased marketing activities. Sigma can create a sales/marketing position for the promotion of renewable energy products that are locally produced and that contribute to sustainable development in the region. By expanding its local presence, Sigma can use new marketing strategies to reach more customers and other stakeholders. Platforms such as social media and websites are cost-effective ways to attract public attention and to communicate with existing and prospective customers. In addition, cooperation with municipalities, other farmers, and other biogas producers is also in focus. Cooperation with car manufacturers and dealers can promote the manufacture and sale of biogas-powered vehicles.

The “marketing and communication” BM prototype developed in Workshop 1

The second BM prototype, “profitability through sustainability” (Fig.  3 ), mainly focuses on brand creation by emphasizing the green trend with its growing demand for sustainable products and services. By creating a strong brand (e.g., “Green Sigma”), Sigma and its geographic region can create an image of an organic and sustainable region that features production and use of farm-based biogas and biofertilizer. In addition, a focus on biotourism in which Sigma offers farm study visits that educate stakeholders and the general public about the biogas concept can lead to more investments and more green customers. Eventually, under a fees arrangement, biotourism might become a profit centre for Sigma. By involving local municipalities and firms as biogas consumers and biogas ambassadors, Sigma may increase its revenue stream as it strengthens its sustainability profile.

The “profitability through sustainability” BM prototype developed in Workshop 1

The third BM prototype, “local market development” (Fig.  4 ), focuses on creating the local conditions needed to make biogas production profitable in the long term. To create these conditions, Sigma should cooperate with local actors who would benefit from an association with a farm-based biogas producer. Working with Sigma, such actors can create a local/regional brand that produces and delivers locally and sustainably produced renewable energy. Sigma can also contribute to the local economy as a tourist destination (farm tourism) and as a seller of locally produced products (e.g., meat, vegetables, and organic fertilizer). With the developmental work on the conversion of biogas to liquid fuel and the plan to build another biogas plant, Sigma may increase its local customer segment as well as increase local tax revenues. On a more abstract level, Sigma’s cooperation with its local actors can create a regional image of responsible environmental and sustainable development. Success with such an image may lead to greater local financial support from governing bodies.

The “local market development” BM prototype developed in Workshop 2

The fourth BM prototype, “long-distance sales and distribution” (Fig.  5 ), focuses on the expansion of Sigma’s current markets. Sigma may investigate opening a distribution channel to the national gas grid. Or Sigma may look for new customers amongst their established suppliers such as the large dairy company or the agricultural cooperative that sells seeds and fertilizer. Sigma may even look for customers willing to pay a premium for farm-based biogas because of its social benefits (the reduction in greenhouse gases and the increase in rural development and employment).

The “long-distance sales and distribution” BM prototype developed in Workshop 2

The fifth BM prototype, “servitization” (Fig.  6 ), focuses on providing additional customer services and producing locally grown and processed food. One possibility for Sigma is to work with filling stations to promote car washes and automatic refueling and to sell organically grown fruit and vegetables. In the interest of serving the customer and society, Sigma can produce environmental performance reports that focus on the benefits of farm-based biogas. Because environmental regulations are likely to increase, Sigma should position itself in the forefront of this movement. In promoting the service concept, distribution channels that link producers and customers should be prioritized. Moreover, Sigma can develop the servitization concept by working more with veterinarians, dairies, and agricultural equipment repair shops that are outside the network. As tangential service suppliers, they may establish mutually beneficial relationships with Sigma.

The “servitization” BM prototype developed in Workshop 2

The conceptual network-level business model approach

In this section, we describe the approach for developing a network-level BM for sustainability (Fig.  7 ) that is based on the five sustainable BM prototypes. First, we present the four network-level BM drivers behind Sigma’s motivation to develop the current BM towards a network-level BM. Drivers 2, 3, and 4 are a consequence of driver 1. The resulting network-level BM is expected to be a significant improvement over the current single-firm BMs of the networked firms. New business opportunities opened up by the network-level BM can promote Sigma’s biogas production as an example of a stakeholder business case for sustainability and thereby help solve some of the firms’ financial difficulties.

The network-level BM approach illustrates how sustainable BM prototypes can be used to develop a network-level BM that can realize farm-based biogas production as a stakeholder business case for sustainability

Increased cooperation and novel partnerships: More cooperation with stakeholders such as local companies, other biogas producers, public actors, and universities. For example, cooperation with car manufacturers and dealers can lead to the promotion of the manufacture and sale of biogas-powered vehicles.

Improved marketing/visibility: The creation of a sales/marketing position, so that Sigma and its products are better advertised as locally produced. Renewable fuel as a contributor to sustainable regional development.

S ustainability brand creation: Promotion of an organic and sustainable brand in which farm-based biogas production is an important activity.

Servitization: Additional services related to the sale and promotion of biogas. More distribution channels, complementary services, and communications on the favourable environmental impact of farm-based biogas production.

The first step of the network-level BM approach is to envision future scenarios as sustainable BM prototypes. External actors who have no prior knowledge of the context and internal actors who are well informed of the context participate in this ideation activity. This heterogeneous mixture of participants promotes a broad perspective and enables idea creation, unrestricted by the current industry logic. At the same time, the mixture can provide further realistic feasibility assessments of the ideas and of the BM prototypes. The second step involves the identification of the network-level BM drivers that correspond to key network-level BM requirements held by various stakeholders, including private-sector firms and public-sector customers (e.g., municipalities). The drivers lie behind the strategies used to create sustainable value via resource efficiency, waste reduction, pollution prevention/reduction measures, production increase, and the use of clean energy and bio-based fertilizer. The third step is the conceptualization of the network-level BM. At this point, Sigma becomes an integral component in the network as it searches for new business opportunities and formulates strategies for the co-creation of sustainable value for the networked firms and their stakeholders. Finally, the network-level BM can enable a fourth step if stakeholder relationships are managed, such that a stakeholder business case for sustainability can be created, developed, and realized.

The creation of, and experimentation with, various BM prototypes at an early stage of business development is an effective way of initiating the work of designing and establishing an actual BM (e.g., Demil and Lecocq 2015 ). In the last decade, Swedish farmers have begun looking at the possibility that the production of farm-based biogas might generate a new income stream and also contribute to environmental and social sustainability (Lybæk et al. 2013 ). This new perspective on farm-based biogas production as a stakeholder business case for sustainability suggests farmers and their stakeholders require joint BMs. For this purpose, this paper proposes an approach for developing a network-level BM for sustainability derived from five sustainable BM prototypes (Figs.  2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 ) based on research conducted at a farm network (Sigma) in southern Sweden.

Previous research on farm-based biogas production concludes that the single-firm logic for creating BMs does not provide sufficient knowledge, expertise, resources, and influence for the management of biogas production in the development and establishment stages (Negro et al. 2007 ; Negro and Hekkert 2008 ; Wadin Lagerstedt et al. 2017 ). Our results support this conclusion. In its dependence on individual BMs at the single firm level, Sigma has failed to realize its intended biogas expansion. An alternative aimed at the achievement of the member firms’ business goals and the realization of the benefits of farm-based biogas production is a joint network-level BM for sustainability. Success with such a network-level BM, to a large extent, depends on the stakeholder relationships and the formation of networks that share the risks and the rewards (Hellström et al. 2015 ; Lindgren et al. 2010 ). Such BM collaboration can complement Sigma’s lack of business skills (in marketing, sustainable brand creation, and servitization) and can provide the required financial resources for the needed biogas infrastructure (investment capital for production, upgrading, and distribution of the biogas).

Gauthier and Gilomen ( 2016 ) and Schaltegger and Burritt ( 2015 ) report that some organizations join collaborative projects more in the expectation that they can meet sustainability challenges than in the expectation that can realize short-term economic benefits. For instance, municipalities have provided support to farm-based biogas production and distribution activities with such motives (Benjaminsson and Benjaminsson 2013 : Karlsson et al. 2017 ). The exploitation of complementary sustainability interests by such key stakeholders is crucial for improving competitiveness (Edgeman and Eskildsen 2014 ) in the context of farm-based biogas production. For that reason, we argue that the existing and future farm biogas producers need to prioritize the realization of a stakeholder business case for sustainability that addresses the social and environmental needs of local municipalities (Karlsson et al. 2017 ; Schaltegger et al. 2017 ). In collaboration with local municipalities, Sigma might develop its biogas infrastructure by investing in new distribution methods (e.g., pipeline-based transport for biogas). This system could provide environmental and social benefits such as reductions in fossil fuel-based road transport, transportation costs, and greenhouse gas emissions. In addition, Sigma might invest in an upgrading facility for converting its raw biogas into biomethane usable as a natural gas replacement in the transport sector.

In line with Seidenstricker et al. ( 2014 ) and Upward and Jones ( 2016 ), we found that business modelling facilitates the internal and external stakeholder communications required for the initiation of BM collaboration. Through the visualization of different BM prototypes for future BM scenarios, the internal communications amongst the Sigma members also improved. As a result, the members were empowered to develop a joint vision and a strategy for the biogas expansion (i.e., the need for a network-level BM for sustainability). They also identified the relevant stakeholders (municipalities and local industries) needed to engage in the transition from a single-firm BM to a network-level BM. Sigma used the BM prototypes to explain the reasons for the planned expansion of biogas production to these stakeholders in terms of increased profitability and sustainable production.

The creation and presentation of sustainable BM prototypes using the FBC tool can thus greatly help biogas-producing farmers and their stakeholders to establish successful collaborations. Therefore, we claim that network-level BMs developed using our approach (Fig.  7 ) can be the basis for developing farm-based biogas production as a stakeholder business case for sustainability that can improve competitiveness and can lead to new business ventures through the delivery of sustainable outcomes (e.g., mitigated greenhouse gas emissions, job creation, and increased resource efficiency and waste management) (Schaltegger et al. 2017 ). Furthermore, the visualization and integration of sustainability in a firm’s BM with the help of business modelling is an important strategic activity that can change the collaborative mindset of managers and staff (e.g., Stubbs and Cocklin 2008 ). This change can facilitate the initiation and maintenance of stakeholder collaborations and partnerships that address mutual business interests, leading to improved long-term financial viability. These findings complement the previous results on collaborative business modelling and experimentation in the context of sustainable value co-creation in networks (e.g., Evans et al. 2017 ).

Theoretical and managerial contributions

The main contribution of this study is its response to the call by Schaltegger et al. ( 2017 ) for the use of the theoretical concept of the stakeholder business case for sustainability in empirical research. Our study describes a practical approach for the development and potential realization of a network-level BM in a network of individual firms. Using business modelling to create BM prototypes based on the sixteen FBC building blocks, we describe an approach for developing a network-level BM for sustainability. This approach, with its clear focus on sustainable value creation and stakeholder management, can be used as a template for developing other network-level BMs that can create stakeholder business cases for sustainability in different contexts.

By forming a “community of practice” based on our network-level BM approach, firm owners and managers can work with researchers, consultants, and other stakeholders to identify ways to advance environmental, economic, and social sustainability through which long-term financial viability can be improved. Our findings complement the previous sustainable BM research by showing how firms and stakeholders can benefit both collectively and individually from collaborative business modelling and experimentation (Bocken et al. 2013 ; Evans et al. 2017 ; Joyce and Paquin 2016 ). Furthermore, we show that the emerging design focus in sustainable BM research (Geissdoerfer et al. 2016 ; Lehmann et al. 2015 ) can be facilitated by business modelling and analyzed using BM prototypes (Demil and Lecocq 2015 ).

From a practical perspective, our results can be used to identify and visualize the drivers of collaborative networks and partnerships, the relevant stakeholders, and the new business opportunities associated with a network-level BM for sustainability. We found that the development of a network-level BM for sustainability and a stakeholder business case for sustainability in the biogas-producing activity is mainly driven by sustainability-oriented branding and marketing, stakeholder involvement, and changes in the competitive environment. With these results, our study complements the research on antecedents and drivers of BM renewal and adaptation (Foss and Saebi, 2017 ; Saebi et al. 2017 ) by showing that sustainability pioneers such as biogas-producing farmers require a holistic approach. Such an approach includes internal and external activities at the firm level if network-level BMs for sustainability are to support long-term financial viability.

Suggestions for further research

The development of a network-level BM for sustainability requires that a number of dedicated firm owners and public actors collaborate as they try to achieve long-term goals. There are several research opportunities in the examination of such collaborative networks.

Future research may examine our network-level BM approach in other industrial contexts and with other firm networks and stakeholders. For example, empirical studies of the use of the approach in other business groups would be fruitful. Such research might also address the roles and input of various stakeholders (e.g., local authorities, customers, external stakeholders, and researchers) when a network-level BM is created and implemented. In the development of a network-level BM and a stakeholder business case for sustainability in practice, researchers might also investigate the moderating effects of, for example, ethical motivations, organizational values, and leadership characteristics that Schaltegger and Burritt ( 2015 ) describe.

We also suggest that researchers further examine the specific industry context of our study. They might take an empirical approach as they study the key actors in network-level BMs for farm-based biogas production. For example, which roles do the various actors play? Which governance rules and power distribution schemes favour the creation and development of sustainable network-level BMs and the subsequent realization of farm-based biogas as a stakeholder business case for sustainability?

The Sigma case also offers further research opportunities. Our study covers the conceptualization of the network-level BM intended to help solve Sigma’s financial problems. The next step for Sigma and its stakeholders is to implement the network-level BM. There is much to be learned about the theoretical and practical issues that arise when a network-level BM is implemented. Therefore, we recommend that future research investigates the network-level BM implementation and evaluates its results (economic, environmental, and social).

Conclusions

This study offers a new, collaborative approach to the development of network-level BMs for sustainability in farm-based biogas production. In its examination of the network concept in the practice of sustainable BM development, the study concludes that collaborative business modelling using the FBC can be used to progress from a narrow firm-level focus to a broad network-level focus. Furthermore, this study shows that business modelling is an effective way to facilitate the work of turning ideas for change into BMs, and for understanding the potential benefits of network-level BMs. A network-level BM (versus the single-firm BM) for sustainability can result in more customers, the expansion of business activities, an increase in sustainable value creation, and higher financial returns. Thus, we conclude that sustainability can be both a trigger for, and a result of, collaborative BM development.

The perspectives and interests of the various stakeholders in networked biogas production systems may be rather different. Such diversity can pose challenges to their collaborative efforts. However, the need for change, whatever its reason, can motivate various actors to unite as they formulate and try to achieve common goals. For Sigma, the poor profitability of the biogas activity motivated its need for change. The challenge, therefore, was to create and develop conditions for improved financial viability. A network-level BM developed for and with stakeholders could create such conditions and generate positive synergistic outcomes. These (possible) outcomes included sustainable value co-creation and greater competitiveness in the long term.

The traditional BMs frequently centre on specific areas (e.g., key activities or distribution channels). However, we found that sustainable BMs in farm-based biogas production are quite complex and require a holistic approach that recognizes the importance of environmental and social benefits as contributors to financial viability. As we describe in the discussion section, this approach depends on the development of a network-level BM for sustainability that includes committed firm owners, supportive local administrations, and other stakeholders who are willing to make long-term investments as they share the risks and rewards. Such network-level BMs form the foundation for the development and realization of a stakeholder business case for sustainability in which farmers and other stakeholders jointly, through the solution of environmental and social problems, create and promote conditions for the long-term financial profitability of farm-based biogas production.

Finally, we conclude that effective development of a network-level BM for sustainability and the realization of a stakeholder business case for sustainability depend on the establishment of a mutually beneficial collaboration between the network actors and the other stakeholders from the very initiation of the process. In some instances, this group of actors may include regional and local municipalities. An innovative, risky, and expensive endeavour that can have positive social and environmental effects (such as farm-based biogas production) requires the commitment of a diverse group of stakeholders. Because of the many, albeit often intangible, sustainability benefits of such endeavours, we conclude that it is worth investigating farm-based biogas production in a broader contest using our practical approach for developing a network-level BM and stakeholder business case for sustainability.

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Acknowledgements

This study was partly funded by the Biogas 2020 project in the EU-Interreg ÖKS programme. The authors thank the anonymous reviewers for their helpful advice and comments.

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Karlsson, N.P., Hoveskog, M., Halila, F. et al. Business modelling in farm-based biogas production: towards network-level business models and stakeholder business cases for sustainability. Sustain Sci 14 , 1071–1090 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11625-018-0584-z

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Biogas Production Business Idea Description in 5 W’s and 1 H Format

By henry sheykin, resources on biogas production.

• Financial Model
• Business Plan
• Value Proposition
• One-Page Business Plan
• SWOT Analysis
• Business Model
• Marketing Plan

Are you ready to discover a groundbreaking business idea that is revolutionizing the energy industry? Look no further than the booming world of biogas production. Green Energy Solutions LLC, a leading player in this field, specializes in harnessing the power of anaerobic digesters to produce biogas—a renewable energy source that is environmentally friendly and sustainable. Not only does Green Energy Solutions LLC focus on producing and selling biogas, but they also contribute to a greener future by selling digestate as fertilizer. Operating in the vibrant city of Denver, Colorado, with plans for nationwide expansion by 2030, this company has set its sights on becoming the top biogas producer in the US by 2025. With a projected revenue of $10 million in its inaugural year and an ambitious goal of achieving 20% year-on-year growth in the first five years, Green Energy Solutions LLC is poised to drive the sustainable energy movement forward. Get ready to delve into the details of this groundbreaking business idea as we unpack the 'who,' 'what,' 'where,' 'when,' 'why,' and 'how' of biogas production.

Key Takeaways

• Green Energy Solutions LLC specializes in biogas production using anaerobic digesters.
• The company focuses on the production and sale of biogas, as well as the sale of digestate as fertilizer.
• Green Energy Solutions LLC operates in Denver, Colorado, with plans to expand operations nationwide by 2030.
• The company aims to become a leading biogas producer in the US by 2025 and promote sustainable energy production.
• Green Energy Solutions LLC plans to generate $10 million in revenue in the first year and achieve 20% year-on-year growth for the first five years.

Green Energy Solutions LLC is a US-based company specializing in biogas production using anaerobic digesters. The company is owned and operated by a team of experienced professionals in the renewable energy industry. The key players in the company include:

- John Smith: Founder and CEO, with a background in renewable energy project development and management.

- Sarah Johnson: Co-founder and CFO, responsible for financial operations and strategic planning.

Green Energy Solutions LLC has a dedicated team of engineers, scientists, and technicians who oversee the operation and maintenance of the anaerobic digesters and biogas production process. The personnel are highly skilled and have extensive knowledge in biogas technology and waste management.

The company works closely with a team of industry advisors who provide guidance and expertise in biogas production, renewable energy policy, and market trends. These advisors help the company stay up-to-date with the latest advancements in the industry and ensure compliance with regulatory requirements.

Green Energy Solutions LLC primarily sells its biogas to utilities for electricity generation and as a transportation fuel. The company also sells digestate, a byproduct of the anaerobic digestion process, as fertilizer to agricultural businesses and organic farms. The target customers include utility companies, transportation companies, and agricultural businesses.

Competition:

In the biogas production industry, Green Energy Solutions LLC faces competition from other companies specializing in anaerobic digestion and biogas production. Some of the major competitors in the market include:

• Biogas Technologies Inc.
• Renewable Energy Solutions Group
• Sustainable Biogas Production LLC

Target Audience:

The target audience for Green Energy Solutions LLC's business plan includes potential lenders, investors, and stakeholders who are interested in supporting and investing in sustainable energy production. The company aims to attract individuals and institutions who are passionate about reducing greenhouse gas emissions and promoting renewable energy sources.

Green Energy Solutions LLC specializes in biogas production using anaerobic digesters. The company focuses on producing and selling biogas, as well as selling digestate as fertilizer. Biogas is produced through the anaerobic digestion process, which involves using anaerobic digesters to break down organic waste and capture the resulting methane gas. This biogas is then sold to utilities for electricity generation or as a transportation fuel.

What do we want to achieve?

Our goal is to become a leading biogas producer in the US by 2025 and to expand our operations to cover all major regions of the US by 2030. We aim to promote sustainable energy production and reduce greenhouse gas emissions while providing a source of income for local farms and waste management facilities through partnership agreements.

What is our sustainable advantage?

Our sustainable advantage lies in our expertise in biogas production through anaerobic digestion and our commitment to environmentally friendly practices. By utilizing anaerobic digesters and converting organic waste into biogas, we are able to provide a renewable energy source that reduces reliance on fossil fuels and minimizes environmental impact.

What do we offer?

We offer reliable and sustainable biogas production services. Our anaerobic digesters efficiently break down organic waste and capture methane gas, which can be used for electricity generation or as a transportation fuel. Additionally, we provide digestate, a nutrient-rich byproduct of the digestion process, as fertilizer, enabling the circular economy.

What do we produce?

We produce biogas through the anaerobic digestion process, utilizing anaerobic digesters to break down organic waste and capture methane gas. This biogas is the primary product that we sell to utilities for electricity generation or as a transportation fuel. Additionally, we produce digestate, a valuable fertilizer, as a byproduct of the digestion process.

What are our business objectives?

Our short-term business objective is to generate a minimum of $10 million in revenue in the first year of operation. In the long term, we aim to achieve a year-on-year growth rate of 20% for the first five years. By the end of the second month, we expect to sell $500,000 worth of biogas and digestate products.

Green Energy Solutions LLC is currently located in Denver, Colorado. The company's headquarters and biogas production facility are situated at 123 Main Street, Denver, CO 12345. With its strategic location, the company benefits from the proximity to a rich source of organic waste and a supportive business environment.

The target audience of Green Energy Solutions LLC includes utilities seeking renewable energy sources, transportation companies interested in using biogas as a cleaner fuel alternative, and sustainable energy advocates. The company aims to meet the energy needs of both urban and rural areas, providing eco-friendly solutions across the United States.

New Opportunities:

As Green Energy Solutions LLC expands its operations, new opportunities arise in various regions of the United States. By 2030, the company plans to cover all major regions of the country, including the West Coast, East Coast, Midwest, and the South. These regions offer significant potential for biogas production due to their dense population, agriculture industry, and existing waste management infrastructure.

To seize these opportunities, Green Energy Solutions LLC will establish partnerships with local farms, waste management facilities, and utilities in each target region. Collaborating with these stakeholders will allow the company to access a reliable supply of organic waste and secure agreements for the sale of biogas and digestate.

Transitioning to Nationwide Presence:

Green Energy Solutions LLC is committed to becoming a leading biogas producer in the United States. To accomplish this, the company will follow a strategic expansion plan. Initially focused on building a strong foundation in Denver, Colorado, and the surrounding region, Green Energy Solutions LLC will invest in state-of-the-art anaerobic digesters and develop efficient biogas production processes.

With each successful operation, the company will gain experience and establish a track record of delivering reliable and sustainable energy solutions. This will enable Green Energy Solutions LLC to attract venture capital and secure bank loans to fund its expansion towards other major regions of the US.

By leveraging its expertise and partnerships, Green Energy Solutions LLC will replicate its business model in new locations. The company will identify suitable sites for anaerobic digesters, establish relationships with local waste management facilities and farms, and collaborate closely with utilities to meet their renewable energy needs.

Through this strategic approach, Green Energy Solutions LLC aims to fulfill its vision of promoting sustainable energy production and reducing greenhouse gas emissions across the United States.

Green Energy Solutions LLC has a clear timeline of goals and objectives that it aims to achieve in the coming years. The company plans to start its operations and put its business plan into action in the year 2024. This will mark the beginning of its journey towards becoming a leading biogas producer in the US.

Short-Term Objectives

The short-term objectives of Green Energy Solutions LLC include building and operating anaerobic digesters in Denver, Colorado, to start the production of biogas. The company aims to generate a minimum revenue of $10 million in its first year of operation. By implementing effective marketing strategies and forming partnerships with local farms and waste management facilities, Green Energy Solutions LLC expects to achieve significant growth and establish a strong presence in its target market.

Long-Term Objectives

In the long term, Green Energy Solutions LLC plans to expand its operations to cover all major regions of the US by 2030. This expansion will enable the company to meet the increasing demand for biogas as an alternative energy source. By producing and selling biogas to utilities for electricity generation and as a transportation fuel, the company aims to contribute to sustainable energy production and reduce greenhouse gas emissions on a national scale. Additionally, the sale of digestate as fertilizer will provide an additional revenue stream for the company.

Retirement and Exit Strategy

Looking ahead, Green Energy Solutions LLC has a clear retirement and exit strategy in mind. The company plans for its founder and key stakeholders to retire from the business in the year 2045. At that point, the company intends to sell its firm to a capable and responsible buyer who will continue to uphold its commitment to sustainable energy production. Alternatively, if a suitable buyer cannot be found, the company is prepared to close down its operations in an organized manner, ensuring the proper management and transfer of its assets.

By setting a specific retirement timeline, Green Energy Solutions LLC aims to ensure a smooth transition and succession of leadership, allowing for continued growth and the lasting impact of its green energy initiatives.

Green Energy Solutions LLC is driven by the goal of promoting sustainable energy production and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. We are dedicated to providing environmentally friendly solutions for energy generation and waste management in the United States. Our mission is to revolutionize the way we harness energy by utilizing anaerobic digesters to produce biogas from organic waste.

Customers are increasingly aware of the impact of their energy consumption on the environment. They seek viable alternatives that contribute to a cleaner and greener future. Our biogas production offers a renewable and sustainable energy source that significantly reduces carbon emissions compared to conventional fossil fuels. By utilizing anaerobic digesters, we not only reduce waste in landfills but also generate valuable biogas that can be utilized in various industries, including electricity generation and transportation.

Buyers would choose to purchase from us because of our commitment to quality, reliability, and environmental responsibility. Our biogas is produced using advanced technology and rigorous processes, ensuring consistent and high-quality output. We prioritize customer satisfaction and provide tailored solutions to meet their specific requirements, whether it involves supplying biogas for electricity generation or transportation fuel.

What sets us apart from competitors is our comprehensive approach to biogas production. We not only focus on biogas generation but also leverage the byproduct of the anaerobic digestion process, digestate, as a valuable fertilizer. By integrating the sale of digestate, we create a circular economy that adds value to the agricultural sector while reducing waste and harmful environmental impacts.

In addition, our strategic partnerships with local farms and waste management facilities enable us to create mutually beneficial collaborations. We provide a sustainable income source for these organizations by utilizing their organic waste as feedstock for biogas production. This partnership strengthens the local communities and fosters a sustainable economic model.

Our commitment to sustainability and making a positive impact on the environment is our driving force. We believe that by spearheading biogas production and advocating for green energy solutions, we can contribute to a more sustainable future for generations to come.

In terms of structure, Green Energy Solutions LLC plans to operate as a limited liability company (LLC). This type of company provides several benefits, including limited personal liability for the owners and simplicity in terms of management and taxation. As an LLC, Green Energy Solutions LLC will have flexible ownership and the ability to attract investors through the issuance of membership interests.

To ensure a smooth registration process and adherence to legal requirements, Green Energy Solutions LLC will engage with a business attorney specializing in small renewable energy companies. This advisor will help navigate the complexities of registration, ensure compliance with state and federal regulations, and provide insights into liabilities and risk management specific to the renewable energy industry.

Attaining Company Objectives

To achieve the company objectives, Green Energy Solutions LLC will adopt a combination of hiring specialized employees and leveraging partnerships. The company will hire experts in anaerobic digestion, biogas production, and waste management to oversee daily operations, maintain the digesters, and ensure efficient production of biogas.

In addition, Green Energy Solutions LLC will establish partnerships with local farms and waste management facilities to secure a steady supply of organic waste for the anaerobic digestion process. These partnerships will not only provide a consistent feedstock but also contribute to the local community by providing income for farmers and waste management facilities.

The company will also invest in research and development to continuously improve the efficiency of the anaerobic digesters and explore new technologies for biogas production. This commitment to innovation will enhance the company's competitiveness in the market and contribute to the overall growth of the biogas industry.

Future Business Development

Green Energy Solutions LLC envisions a future where renewable energy, particularly biogas, plays a significant role in the US energy landscape. The company aims to be at the forefront of this transformation, driving the adoption of sustainable energy practices and reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

With its comprehensive business plan and strategic expansion goals, Green Energy Solutions LLC plans to become a leading biogas producer in the US by 2025. The company aims to establish a strong presence in all major regions of the country by 2030, contributing to a greener and more sustainable future.

Green Energy Solutions LLC's vision is to be recognized as a pioneer and trailblazer in the biogas industry, setting the standard for sustainable energy production and waste management. The company strives to be a catalyst for positive change, showcasing the economic and environmental benefits of renewable energy while paving the way for a cleaner and more sustainable future.

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Eu cities mission 'twinning learning programme': call opens soon, financing and business models for biogas.

On 15 June, an online discussion took place as a follow-up activity to the webinar on ' Biogas from Bio-Waste ', picking up on the questions asked about financing options and business models for new biogas plants. The specific objectives were to explain the setup and the cost implications of different types of biogas plants and what this means for their business models and financing options .

As separate collection of bio-waste from households becomes mandatory in 2023, a 'new' organic fraction becomes available as input material for biogas plants. Municipalities, as owners of this waste fraction, must decide what shall happen to it. Among the treatment options are biogas and composting, whereas composting is cheaper, but biogas allows to also generate renewable energy, reduce greenhouse gas emissions and creates more local employment, adding more value overall.

Understanding the business model behind new plants helps public authorities to use public funding effectively , not funding entire plants, but only funding enough so that private sector investors have a natural interest in investing in new plants because the economic framework conditions are showing they can make a profit.

Biogas plants that treat municipal bio-waste are more expensive to run than agricultural biogas plants because the input material is usually a bit contaminated with e.g. plastics and must be cleaned prior to anaerobic digestion. Such plants must be financed with a combination of revenue for the treatment of waste (called 'gate fee' and paid per ton of bio-waste treated; payment to be arranged by the municipality as owner of the waste, financed through fees for waste collection from households, and can be co-financed by regional funds under conditions), and a revenue for the sale of renewable gas or renewable electricity and heat . 

Regions should start with a potential analysis to assess the available bio-waste and other feedstock for new biogas plants.

Regions should plan for new biogas plants in the entire territory to avoid funding too many plants at once that will later compete for a limited amount of available feedstock.

Potential analysis should carefully distinguish between theoretical potential and realistically achievable volume of separately collected bio-waste , especially when introducing separate collection of bio-waste from households for the first time.

Regional waste management planning and regional renewable energy planning should be integrated , as in Denmark (Min. ENV and Min. ENERGY or the equivalents at regional level should cooperate).

When tendering out biogas plants, municipalities or regions should offer long-term contracts for supply of bio-waste and gate fee and offer long-term uptake agreements for the renewable energy produced (min. 15 years). 

Village-level bioenergy plants linked to a district heating supplying the village and local industry with thermal energy is a great concept that combines biogas and heating of buildings. Old oil-based or inefficient coal and biomass-based heatings can be replaced by an energy efficiency district heating using renwable heat from biogas plants. The business model for the distrinct heating should be de-coupled from the busines model of the biogas plant but can be planned together. District heating is economically interesting for villages with 500-1500 inhabitants and becomes cheaper where houses are concentrated or are multi-apartment houses, but it can work even with 10 households connected. 

As it is unusual that demand for such village-based biogas plants and new district heating emerges from the villages by itseld, it is advised to use intermediaries to assess the potential and to advice rural municipalities about their options. 

Under the cohesion policy of the European Union, regional funds are available to co-finance the construction costs and the operation costs of such new plants that are in line with the new Waste Framework Directive and the Circular Economy Package. Moreover, biogas clusters and the development of commercial products such as fertilisers from biogas production can be supported.

Depending on the region’s socio-economic wealth, co-financing rates vary. But even for more developed regions, public funding is available via the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) . The recently announced recovery fund is making billions of additional money available that must be spent by 2023, with this period’s funding for operational programmes. But biogas plants of all types are also eligible for support in the upcoming period (2021-2027) and should be considered by programming committees for the next general generation of regional, national and cross-border programmes right now.

The presentations are available below

• Document Presentation by Astrid Severin, Thematic Expert of environment and resource efficiency.
• Document Presentation  by Katharina Krell, Thematic Expert of low-carbon economy.
• Document Presentation by Volker Kromrey, Programme Director Energy Transition of Bodensee Stiftung / Lake Constance Foundation
• Document Presentation by Thorsten Kohlisch, Policy Learning Platform project manager. 

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Biogas Production Process, Working Principles, Plant Cost

Table of contents, how to set up a biogas plant in india, biogas production in india, principle of biogas:, benefits of biogas technology:, fixed dome-type of biogas plant, the floating gas holder type of biogas plant, raw materials required in biogas production process:, biogas production process:, the ecology of biogas:, biological breakdown:, the process of biogas production:, construction of a biogas plant, working of a biogas plant, conversion of biogas to electricity:, cost of the biogas plant in india:, storage of biogas, some facts about the biogas production process:, a step by step guide for the biogas production process in india..

Today, we discuss the topic of the biogas production process along with types of biogas plants, working principles of biogas, biogas plant cost in India, advantages of biogas. We also include a biogas plant diagram for your reference. why wait, let us dive into the steps involved in the Biogas production process.

Biogas is a biofuel and it normally refers to the gas produced from organic matter as it is broken down by biological means. Biogas can be produced by anaerobic digestion or fermentation of biodegradable materials such as biomass, manure, sewage, municipal waste, cattle dung, green waste and energy crops. The production of biogas can be naturally produced from the decomposition of organic waste. When organic matter, such as food scraps and animal waste, break down in an anaerobic environment that means an environment absent of oxygen they release a blend of gases, primarily methane and carbon dioxide.

The biogas formed from a digester is comprised primarily of methane, carbon dioxide, and other trace gases. A biogas plant generates biogas from organic substances such as cattle –dung, and other biodegradable materials such as biomass from farms, gardens, kitchens and night soil wastes, etc. The process of biogas generation is known as anaerobic digestion (AD).

Biogas production is primarily Methane and Carbon dioxide. It could have small amounts of hydrogen sulfide moisture and siloxanes. The primary gases methane, hydrogen and carbon monoxide can be combusted or oxidized with oxygen. This energy release allows biogas to be used as a fuel; it can be used for any heating function, such as cooking. Biogas can be used in a gas engine to convert the energy in the gas into electricity and heat.

Approximately, the production of biogas in India is about 20,757 lakh cubic meters in 2014-15. This is equivalent to 6.6 crores domestic Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) cylinders. This is equivalent to 5% of the total LPG consumption in India today.

Within states, Maharashtra tops the production biogas with 3578 lakh cubic meters while Andhra Pradesh comes next with 2165 lakh cubic meters.

The principle of biogas production will be given below;

Biogas is formed as a result of anaerobic fermentation of biomass in the presence of water.

Some of the benefits of the biogas technology are given below;

• Biogas provides clean gaseous fuel for cooking and lighting.
• Chemical fertilizers can be done away with since the digested slurry formed from the biogas plants can be used as enriched bio-manure .
• Biogas is good for the climate and for sanitation problems since toilets can be linked directly with biogas plants.
• These biogas plants have created millions of jobs in most countries, especially in the area of waste collection and biogas generation. For example, in India, the biogas plant industry creates more than 10 million man-days jobs each year in rural areas.
• It is a green energy source in the form of electricity and heat for the local grid.
• Biogas is an environmentally friendly recirculation of organic waste from industry and households.
• Biogas could be particularly helpful in rural or poorer areas due to the low cost of set-up and the availability of waste materials.
• Waste collection and management considerably improves in areas with biogas plants. More people get involved in waste collection in order to obtain a source of income. This effect leads to overall sanitation and hygiene of the areas.
• The process of biogas generation leaves behind enriched organic manure, which is a good supplement or replacement of chemical fertilizers .

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Types of biogas plants

There are mainly two types of biogas plants in usage for the production of biogas. These are:

• The fixed dome type of biogas plant
• The floating gas holder type of biogas plant.

The fixed dome type biogas plant consist of a closed underground digester tank made up of bricks which has a dome-shaped roof made up of bricks. This dome-shaped roof of the digester tank functions as a gas holder and has an outlet pipe at the top to provide gas to homes.

The slurry is formed by mixing water in cattle dung in equal proportion in mixing tank. The formed slurry is then sent into the digester tank with the help of the inlet chamber. It must be noted that slurry is fed into the digester tank up to the point where the dome of the roof starts. Inside the digester tank, the complex carbon compounds are present in the cattle dung breaks into simpler materials by the action of anaerobic microorganisms in the presence of water. This anaerobic decomposition of complex carbon compounds present in cattle dung produces biogas and gets finished in about 60 days. The produced biogas starts to collect in the dome-shaped roof of biogas plant and is supplied to homes through pipes. The spent slurry is replaced with fresh slurry in time to time and continue the production of biogas .

The floating gas holder type biogas plant consists of a dome-shaped gas holder made of steel and for collecting biogas. This gas holder is not fixed but is moveable and floats over the slurry present in the digester tank. Due to this explanation, this biogas plant is called the floating gas holder type biogas plant.

The slurry is formed by mixing water in cattle dung in equal proportion in mixing tank. The slurry is then injected into a digester tank with the use of the inlet pipe. The digester tank is a closed underground tank prepared up of bricks. Inside the digester tank, the carbon compounds present in the cattle dung breaks into simpler compounds by the action of anaerobic microorganisms in the presence of water. This anaerobic decomposition of complex carbon compounds present in cattle dung generates biogas and gets completed in about 60 days. The biogas starts to collect in floating gas holder and is supplied to homes through pipes. And the spent slurry is replaced with fresh slurry to continue the production of biogas.

Important raw materials for biogas production are given below;

• Animal Dung
• Poultry wastes
• Plant wastes (Husk, grass, weeds, etc.)
• Human excreta
• Agricultural Wastes
• Industrial wastes(Sawdust, wastes from food processing industries)
• Domestic wastes (Vegetable peels, waste food materials)

Biogas is produced either;

• As landfill gas (LFG), which is formed by the breakdown of biodegradable waste inside a landfill due to chemical reactions and microbes, or
• As digested gas, formed inside an anaerobic digester.

Biogas is known as an environmentally-friendly energy source because it alleviates two main environmental problems simultaneously:

• The global waste epidemic that releases dangerous stages of methane gas every day
• The reliance on fossil fuel energy to assemble global energy demand

By converting organic waste into energy, biogas is utilizing nature’s elegant tendency to recycle substances into useful resources. Biogas generation recovers waste materials that could otherwise pollute landfills; prevents the usage of toxic chemicals in sewage treatment plants, and saves money, energy, and material by treating waste on-site. Also, biogas usage does not require fossil fuel extraction to produce energy.

Instead, biogas takes a problematic gas and changes it into a much safer form. More specifically, the methane content there in decomposing waste is converted into carbon dioxide. Methane gas has roughly 20 to 30 times the heat-trapping capabilities of carbon dioxide. This means that when a rotting loaf of bread converts into biogas, the loaf’s environmental impact will be about ten times less potent than if it was left to rot in a landfill.

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To produce biogas, organic ferments with the help of bacterial communities. Four stages of fermentation move the organic material from their primary composition into their biogas state.

• The first stage of the digestion procedure is the hydrolysis stage. In the hydrolysis phase, insoluble organic polymers (such as carbohydrates) are broken down, making it accessible to the next stage of bacteria called acidogenic bacteria.
• The acidogenic bacteria convert sugars and amino acids convert into carbon dioxide, hydrogen, ammonia, and organic acids.
• At the third phase, the acetogenic bacteria convert the organic acids into acetic acid, hydrogen, ammonia, and carbon dioxide, allowing for the final stage- the methanogens.
• The methanogens change these last components into methane and carbon dioxide- which can then be used as flammable, green energy.

The biogas plant receives all kinds of organic waste and typically livestock manure and organic industrial waste. The dry solid in livestock manure contains carbon, among other things, and in the process, the carbon is transformed into biogas, a compound of methane (CH4) and carbon dioxide (CO2).

The manure and waste are mixed in the plant’s receiving tank before being heated to 38 to 52°C or 100-125.6°F and pumped into the digester in which the biogas is produced. The biomass stays in the digester for 2 to 3 weeks and the fermented slurry can subsequently be used as crop fertilizer. This fertilizer has better qualities such as fewer odor inconveniences when spreading the slurry and significant reduction of greenhouse gasses.

The biogas plant is a brick and cement structure having the below five sections:

• Mixing tank present above the ground level.
• Inlet chamber: In these the mixing tank opens underground into a sloping inlet chamber.
• Digester: The inlet chamber opens from under into the digester which is a huge tank with a dome-like ceiling. The ceiling of the digester has an outlet with a valve for the production of biogas.
• Outlet chamber: In these, the digester opens from below into an outlet chamber.
• Overflow tank: In these, the outlet chamber opens from the top into a small overflow tank.

Let us discuss the working of a biogas plant ;

In the working of biogas plant firstly the fresh animal manure is stored in a collection tank and before its processing to the homogenization tank which is prepared with a mixer to facilitate homogenization of the waste stream. The uniformly mixed waste is passed through a macerator to get uniform particle size of 5-10 mm and pumped into suitable-capacity anaerobic digesters where stabilization of organic waste takes place.

In anaerobic digestion, organic material is converted to biogas by a series of bacteria sets into methane and carbon dioxide. The majority of commercially operating digesters are plugging flow and complete-mix reactors operating at mesophilic temperatures. The type of digester used changes with the consistency and solids content of the feedstock, with capital investment factors and with the primary purpose of anaerobic digestion .

Biogas can be used to work a dual-fuel engine to replace up to 80 % of diesel oil. Diesel engines have been modified to run 100 percent on biogas production. Petrol and CNG engines can be modified easily to use biogas.  A special adapter can be fitted to LPG Genset to enable process with biogas. Importing a small biogas Genset directly from Bangladesh could be the cheaper alternative until a suitable product is developed in India.

The below points are explained about working of biogas plant ;

• The various forms of biomass are mixed with the same quantity of water in the mixing tank. This forms the slurry.
• The slurry is fed into the digester during the inlet chamber.
• When the digester is moderately filled with the slurry, the introduction of slurry is stopped and the plant is left unused for about two months.
• During these two months, an anaerobic bacterium present in the slurry decomposes or ferments the biomass in the presence of water.
• As an effect of anaerobic fermentation, biogas is formed, which starts collecting in the dome of the digester.
• As increasingly biogas starts collecting, the pressure exerted by the biogas forces the spent slurry into the outlet chamber.
• In the outlet chamber, the spent slurry overflows into the overflow tank.
• The spent slurry is manually removed from the overflow tank and is used as manure for plants.
• The gas valve connected to a structure of pipelines is opened when a supply of biogas is required.
• To get a continuous supply of biogas, a functioning plant can be fed continuously with the prepared slurry.

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Theoretically, biogas can be converted into electricity by using a fuel cell. However, this procedure requires very clean gas and expensive fuel cells. Hence, this option is still a matter for research and is not currently a practical option. The conversion of biogas to electric power by a generator set is more practical. In contrast to natural gas, biogas is characterized by a high knock resistance and thus can be used in combustion motors with high compression rates.

In most cases, biogas is used as fuel for combustion engines, which convert it to mechanical energy, powering an electric generator to create electricity. The design of an electric generator is related to the design of an electric motor. Most generators create alternating AC electricity; they are therefore also called alternators or dynamos. Appropriate electric generators are obtainable in virtually all countries and in all sizes. The technology is well known and maintenance is very simple. The combustion engine using the biogas as fuel. In theory, biogas can be used as fuel in nearly all types of combustion engines, such as gas engines or Otto motor, diesel engines, gas turbines, and Stirling motors, etc.

The cost of biogas plant changes from place to place and size of the plant. The average cost of two cubic meter size biogas plant is about Rs. 17,000/-. It is normally high about 30 percent more in hilly areas and about 50 percent more in the North Eastern Region States.

Biogas is not typically produced at the time or in the quantity required to satisfy the conversion system load that it serves. When this occurs, storage systems are employed to smooth out variations in gas creation, gas quality, and gas consumption. The storage component acts as a reservoir, allowing downstream equipment to operate at a constant pressure.

Wide selections of materials have been used in making biogas storage vessels. Medium-and high-pressure storage vessels are normally constructed of mild steel while low-pressure storage vessels can be made of steel, concrete, and plastics. The newest reinforced plastics feature polyester fabric which appears to be appropriate for flexible digester covers. The delivery pressure necessary for the final biogas conversion system affects the choice for biogas storage.

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• The biogas production process is and simple. Anyone can set a biogas plant.
• The number of biogas plants in India can be increased from 1.23 million in the year 1990 to around 4.54 million in 2012, despite an estimated potential of 12.34 million digesters.
• The gases formed in a biogas plant formula are primarily composed of methane gas, carbon dioxide, and trace amounts of nitrogen, hydrogen, and carbon monoxide.
• Biogas is purified, compressed and stored in Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) cylinder which makes it easy to transport for use. A high-pressure gas storage structure in a pressure vessel for storing compressed gas as low-cost energy.
• The pioneer of anaerobic digestion in India is S.V. Desai and for his first experiments on biogas production in 1939. This led to the development of the first Indian biogas plant in 1951, the Gramalaxi plant of the Khadi and Village Industries Commission (KVIC), better recognized as the KVIC digester.
• Naturally, the cost of an undefined biogas plant range from cheap to very expensive, depending on the scale and the market. A 25 kg per day will cost around 2.5 lakh, will provide around 0.5 kg of biogas, and can be used for cooking.
• From 1Kg cattle manure, you can obtain 0.24 m3 biogas of which 65% is methane. Biogas produced from 1 kg of cattle manure can differ greatly since it depends on the water and on the organic matter content.
• While Biogas disperses into the air quickly as it is lighter than air and is much safer in homes than Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) or LPG. Biogas is far safer than LPG. Biogas is a type of fuel that can be a complete replacement for Petrol and CNG.
• Theoretically, biogas can also be converted directly into electricity by using a fuel cell. However, this procedure requires very clean gas and expensive fuel cells. In most cases, biogas is used as fuel for combustion engines, which convert it to mechanical energy, powering an electric generator to create electricity.

That’s all folks about Biogas production process and advantages. Keep producing natural energy.

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would like to start a bio gas plant want some help

We wish to install a Bio gas plant at our project site for generation of Electricity. Request your good selves to provide some information on suppliers of Bio gas plants in India

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Biogas From Mega-Dairies Is a Problem, Not a Solution

Manure biogas production has been touted as an environmental remedy to methane emissions from animal agriculture. But researchers, advocates and community members want you to know what’s really going on—and what you can do about it.

At the end of February, the town board of Lind, Wisconsin voted against changing the zoning laws to allow a nearby 600-cow dairy to install an anaerobic digester. These digesters are becoming more common, particularly at larger dairy operations housing thousands of cows, called concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs). This is partially because they have been included as a key ingredient in the Biden administration’s pledge to reduce methane emissions in animal agriculture.

At CAFOs, it is common to pool animal waste in one spot, called a manure lagoon. Anaerobic digestion creates a mixture of gases, which can be used for electricity or further processed into fuel for vehicles. The idea is to take advantage of these large quantities of waste to create something useful and reduce methane emissions, helping the climate along the way.

However, that’s not quite how it works out. In Lind, an overwhelming number of citizens showed up for a public hearing to discuss the change—the Wisconsin Examiner reported that there were so many attendees, they exceeded the capacity of the building and the meeting had to be canceled. Community organizers, under the group name Citizens Protecting Rural Wisconsin , argued that digesters aren’t the solution that they seem to be.

A new report by Friends of the Earth US and Socially Responsible Agriculture Project (SRAP) backs up that sentiment. The study suggests that methane digesters create incentives for the growth of industrial agriculture, further entrenching food systems that harm both people and the environment. These researchers, communities and advocates are working hard to resist the greenwashing of this technology—and sometimes they succeed. Vanguard Renewables, the company partnering with the dairy near Lind, officially withdrew its application to build in March. 

Anaerobic digesters are not typically things that you would ever see on a small, pasture-based dairy or farm. Digesters require a lot of manure to work, meaning that they are more poised to be installed on CAFOs that typically have hundreds or thousands of animals. This suggests that supporting biogas production incentivizes the growth of the CAFO industry. 

“If we put money towards biogas, we’re essentially helping to subsidize and further entrench industrial livestock production,” says Chris Hunt, deputy director at SRAP and a contributor to this report, “and essentially the worst possible ways of managing waste, which is manure lagoons.”

This growth was documented in the report, finding that herd size at the studied CAFOs with digesters grew 3.7 percent year over year—24 times the growth rate of typical dairies in the states they studied. 

“Once you have a digester in place, there’s an incentive to create more biogas, because there’s now a market for biogas,” says Hunt. “The only way of doing that is to create more waste. So, there’s an incentive to add more animals to herd size.”

Greenwashing

The Global Methane Pledge was launched at COP26, aiming to reduce global methane emissions by 30 percent by 2030, using 2020 levels as a baseline. In 2021, the US released its own methane reduction plan . Expanding manure biogas production was listed as a key way to reduce methane emissions in the agriculture sector. Between 2010 and 2020, the USDA Rural Business Cooperative Service supported grants and loans totaling $117 million toward anaerobic digesters.

This plan aims to develop the industry further. Not only does it commit the USDA to launch additional work into biogas policies and research, but existing Farm Bill conservation programs such as the Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP) and the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) will provide resources in service of manure biogas production. 

In 2020, manure accounted for about 9 percent of the US’s methane emissions. The greater source of methane from animal agriculture is through enteric fermentation—created through the process of digestion. This accounted for about 27 percent of US methane emissions. Using anaerobic digesters to produce biogas can only address that 9 percent, and it does nothing to reduce the 27 percent inherent to ruminant agriculture—animals such as cows, buffalo, goats and sheep.

The gases produced by anaerobic digestion are being used for electricity and to power vehicles, but as the report and other advocacy organizations argue, this doesn’t make it a clean fuel.

“When you burn this fuel as an end use, it’s essentially the same as burning fossil fuels,” said Kat Ruane of Food & Water Watch during a recent webinar about biogas production in California. “It produces similar pollutants, it harms the environment in the same way and you’re still pumping gas into the atmosphere that we really don’t need to be there. So, clearly, this cannot be a solution to climate change.”

Anaerobic digesters. (Photo from Shutterstock)

Food & Water Watch did its own study on digesters in California feeding into the state’s Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS) program. The leakage rates of these digesters could be as much as 15 percent. Food & Water Watch used satellite images of methane plumes overlaid with geographic information about where digesters in the LCFS program were located. They documented 16 dairy operations that emitted plumes, producing 59 plumes between March 2017 and July 2023. The emission rates of these plumes reached as high as 1,729 kilograms of methane per hour. A “super-emitter” in the imaging system is classified as just 10 kilograms of methane per hour.

“Another huge greenwashing problem with this technology is just the fact that it does not work,” said Ruane. “[It’s] an absolutely mind-boggling amount of pollution being produced under the guise of supposedly helping the climate.”

In addition to research, Food & Water Watch mobilizes people on issues related to food systems and factory farming. On its website , you can read about its various objectives and wins against industrialized farming as well as calls to action on these issues. Hunt of SRAP also encourages people directly dealing with the impact of factory farming on their community to reach out directly.

“If any of your readers are facing a factory farm, they should contact us,” says Hunt. “We provide free support to communities throughout the US to help them protect themselves from the damaging impacts of industrial livestock operations.” 

There’s no uniform approach for dealing with this issue, he says, as it depends a lot on regional factors, but SRAP provides resources such as the SRAP Help Hotline and SRAP Water Rangers Program , which offers free training on how to collect and analyze water samples, document pollution and report violations.

“There’s not really one universal secret. But this is what our organization does. So, I would encourage folks to reach out to us for help.” 

Digesters don’t erase factory farm concerns

Even if biogas production wiped out methane emissions completely, that’s still a narrow view of the factory farm problem, says Hunt.

“Biogas doesn’t solve the factory farm issue,” says Hunt. “Greenhouse gas emissions aren’t the only problems in factory farms. As someone who’s been working on this issue for 20 years, it’s actually one of the problems with factory farms that concerns me the least.”

He says that methane emissions are being misconstrued as the major problem caused by factory farms, and biogas has been used as the proxy for fixing all the problems explicitly with CAFOs. “But they don’t do that at all,” says Hunt.

Digesters don’t address worker or animal rights abuses at CAFOs, nor all of the environmental concerns. Moreover, many of the human health impacts are not mitigated by anaerobic digesters.

“When you have too many animals in one place, you’re going to have too much waste in one place, and that waste becomes a problem—that waste becomes a pollutant,” says Hunt. “So, these facilities pollute the air, pollute the water and threaten public health and spoil people’s drinking water. Adding digesters doesn’t actually fix that.”

Manure storage vessels. (Photo from Shutterstock)

As of 2020, there were more than 21,000 CAFOs in the US, and some are clustered geographically. In California’s San Joaquin Valley, for example, some people live next to as many as 25 CAFOs. 

The abundance of CAFOs in the San Joaquin Valley isn’t accidental, says Leslie Martinez, community engagement specialist at the Leadership Counsel for Justice and Accountability (LCJA). The San Joaquin Valley has several historically Black communities that are now largely Latino, and the abundance of polluters is evidence of environmental racism—hazardous materials or operations being located or dumped in communities of color. Moreover, many of these communities are unincorporated, and this can make it more difficult for residents to advocate for themselves.

“First and foremost, I think it’s really important that people understand the health impacts that come with so many large animals being confined in one area,” says Martinez.

These impacts include sleep apnea, asthma and other respiratory issues , as well as not being able to go outside because of the intensity of the smell or due to being swarmed by flies. CAFOs present a threat of nitrate pollution, which can cause a variety of illnesses including blue baby syndrome. Manure contamination can also lead to severe pathogen-related illnesses such as listeriosis and tetanus. The SRAP and Friends of the Earth report posits that while anaerobic digesters achieve temperatures that can kill some pathogens, the real solution is not to have such high concentrations of animals in the first place.

Martinez, who was born and raised in Tulare County in the San Joaquin Valley, works closely with other local organizers to do policy work against the LCFS rewarding CAFOs, such as trying to eliminate methane crediting. She encourages everyone to speak up on the impacts of dairies.

“Attend a workshop, speak up and be like, ‘As somebody who lives next to a dairy, as someone who lives next to a dairy with a digester, this is my reality of what I live with,’” says Martinez. “No one should be able to take away your right to clean air and clean drinking water and get away with it.”

On the LCJA website, you can read more about this work and find information for taking action . Small dairy farmers who’ve had success should share their stories, too, she says.

“Small farmers, rise up,” says Martinez. “There are success stories that I think need to be talked about. And I would love to hear what their solutions are to this epidemic of the CAFO industry.”

Dairy cows being milked. (Photo from Shutterstock)

A more sustainable future for dairy

As the SRAP and Friends of the Earth report states, “Only if one accepts the status quo model for industrial animal production as the baseline can it be argued that manure biogas has any benefits.” For Hunt, biogas production is not compatible with climate change solutions at all.

“I don’t think a sustainable future is compatible with the CAFO model,” he says. “You can spend millions of dollars and stick a digester on top of your lagoon, you can stunt the emissions a little bit that way. But you’re still left with all these other problems that are inherent in that model.”

“I don’t think a sustainable future is compatible with the CAFO model.”

Martinez encourages those who consume milk and dairy products to think critically about how these products get to your table. Collectively, she says, we need to think about what sustainability is and what we as consumers are willing to accept.

“Right now, people are saying that you having access to [these products] is more important than a young child being able to go outside and ride their bike or walk home from school,” says Martinez. “Because right now that’s kind of what the trade-off is.”

In her organizing, Martinez has been accused of being anti-dairy industry and anti-dairy farmer.

“But that is not true. I think that there is a place for dairies. And I think that that place for dairies is when you don’t have thousands of cows. It’s not sustainable,” she said in the Food & Water Watch webinar. “If we want to genuinely keep dairies around in California or in Wisconsin, wherever, they have to be truly sustainable. And that means making big changes.”

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Sad to see a “farm” publication publish such a hit piece against their supposed target. Farmers.

The article had an anti human,anti farm slant. It’s scary that their are people pushing this agenda.

If you read the comments made by the town of Lind people there was more concern of outside byproducts brought in and added to the manure. Please get ALL the information before reporting your story.

It’s completely bizarre and sad to see “environmental” organizations fighting against biodigesters in the US. In other parts of the world, environmental groups are working to build *more* digesters because they are such a fantastic way to generate renewable energy from organic waste materials. Perhaps it’s because people in the US somehow believe that digesters can only be used on large scale farms? But that’s not true! Just like composting (which is the aerobic version of anaerobic digestion), digestion can happen on any scale from a backyard bucket to a massive multi-acre campus. For example, check out ATTRA’s awesome resources …  Read more »

We happen to be that Town of Lind Dairy that was denied permission to build a state of the art co -digester that would not only recycle manure but would also utilize expired food and process waste such as whey and potato waste that would be diverted from landfills. The irony of the entire discussion is that a small dairy such as ours cannot support a manure only digester. If we had 5000 or 10,0000 cows we would be allowed to build a digester, no questions asked. The entire problem was that because we are accepting food waste local officials …  Read more »

If you looked at the comments made in the Town of Lind farm there was a real concern of products brought in to add to the manure. Please get ALL your information before doing your story.

This article is very misleading and it wrongfully reports that the environmental impact of anaerobic digestion (AD) is similar to burning fossil fuels, when in fact it is a viable form of renewable energy. AD has been utilized for over 100 years as a way of producing energy from a wide range of biological wastes, and is commonly used in municipal wastewater treatment. This article would have been more useful if it explained the pros and cons of AD and how it could help family farms compete with CAFO’s.

Biogas is a solution. It would be wise to remember before whites even arrived that bison which are also ruminants numbered as high as 93 million. Many of those herds would have dwarfed the so called ‘CAFO’. This article seems like a hit on common sense.

The push to move away from CAFOs for dairy overlooks the most important piece driving this. Consumers must be willing to pay more for milk and animal products. Large scale agriculture exists because it makes production more affordable for the farmer and at a price point consumers are willing (and able) to pay. Small dairies are barely hanging on based on the price of production and the price the federal marketing order pays for them. Additionally, large scale dairy exists in the Central Valley exists because the land was open and affordable when dairies were pushed out of areas like …  Read more »

It is incredible how a person could write these sort of wrong information. Two hypothesis: he has a very poor intellectual formation or he is inducted by persons that have other interests.

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Aemetis to Present to Institutional Investors at UBS, JP Morgan and Stifel Conferences to Review Recent Federal Approval of $200 Million of EB-5 Funding for SAF, Biogas, and CCS Projects

CUPERTINO, CA, April 23, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- via NewMediaWire -- Aemetis, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMTX), a renewable natural gas and renewable fuels company focused on low and negative carbon intensity products, today announced that senior executives of the company will present to institutional investors at conferences hosted by UBS, JP Morgan and Stifel. The presentation will include a review of the recent federal U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) approval of $200 million of EB-5 funding for Aemetis sustainable aviation fuel, dairy renewable natural gas, and carbon sequestration projects.

Aemetis Chair/CEO Eric McAfee will present and hold one-on-one meetings with institutional investors at the Stifel Cross Sector Insight Conference in Boston on June 5, the UBS Decarbonization Conference in New York on June 6, and the JP Morgan Energy, Power & Renewables Conference in New York on June 17-18.

“The recent approval from the federal government allows $200 million of EB-5 low interest rate funding to build our sustainable aviation fuel, dairy renewable natural gas, and carbon sequestration projects,” stated Eric McAfee, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Aemetis, Inc. “In addition, in Q4 of last year we sold $63 million of federal Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) tax credits for $55 million. We expect about $450 million of expected future tax credit sales will support funding for our low carbon intensity biofuels projects, which is expected to significantly increase operating cash flow.”

The Riverbank sustainable aviation fuel plant recently received Authority to Construct air permits and is designed to produce 78 million gallons per year when allocating 100% of production to SAF for the aviation market. An aggregate of $3.8 billion of offtake agreements have been signed with ten airlines for SAF supply.

The Aemetis Biogas business now generates positive cash flow from operations, has built 36 miles of biogas pipeline, and is building dairy digesters toward a goal of 75 operating digesters within the next sixty months.

The Aemetis carbon sequestration project at the Riverbank site received a permit to drill a geologic characterization well to obtain samples of the subterranean formations in support of the EPA Class VI CO 2  sequestration well permitting process.

With the expansion of these businesses, Aemetis plans growth to more than $1.9 billion of revenues and $645 million of EBITDA in the fifth year of the current Aemetis Five Year Plan.

About Aemetis

Headquartered in Cupertino, California, Aemetis is a renewable natural gas, renewable fuel and biochemicals company focused on the operation, acquisition, development and commercialization of innovative technologies that replace petroleum-based products and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Founded in 2006, Aemetis is operating and actively expanding a California biogas digester network and pipeline system that converts dairy waste gas into Renewable Natural Gas. Aemetis owns and operates a 65 million gallon per year ethanol production facility in California’s Central Valley near Modesto that supplies about 80 dairies with animal feed. Aemetis owns and operates a 60 million gallon per year production facility on the East Coast of India producing high quality distilled biodiesel and refined glycerin for customers in India and Europe. Aemetis is developing a sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) and renewable diesel fuel biorefinery in California to utilize renewable hydrogen, hydroelectric power, and renewable oils to produce low carbon intensity renewable jet and diesel fuel. For additional information about Aemetis, please visit  www.aemetis.com .

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This news release contains forward-looking statements, including statements regarding assumptions, projections, expectations, targets, intentions or beliefs about future events or other statements that are not historical facts. Forward-looking statements include, without limitation, projections of financial results in 2024 and future years; statements relating to the development, engineering, financing, construction and operation of the Aemetis ethanol, biogas, SAF and renewable diesel, and carbon sequestration facilities; and our ability to promote, develop and deploy technologies to produce renewable fuels and biochemicals. Words or phrases such as “anticipates,” “may,” “will,” “should,” “believes,” “estimates,” “expects,” “intends,” “plans,” “predicts,” “projects,” “showing signs,” “targets,” “view,” “will likely result,” “will continue” or similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are based on current assumptions and predictions and are subject to numerous risks and uncertainties. Actual results or events could differ materially from those set forth or implied by such forward-looking statements and related assumptions due to certain factors, including, without limitation, competition in the ethanol, biodiesel and other industries in which we operate, commodity market risks including those that may result from current weather conditions, financial market risks, customer adoption, counter-party risks, risks associated with changes to federal policy or regulation, and other risks detailed in our reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including our Annual Reports on Form 10-K, and in our other filings with the SEC. We are not obligated, and do not intend, to update any of these forward-looking statements at any time unless an update is required by applicable securities laws.

External Investor Relations Contact: Kirin Smith PCG Advisory Group (646) 863-6519 [email protected]

Company Investor Relations/ Media Contact: Todd Waltz (408) 213-0940 [email protected]

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Aemetis to Present to Institutional Investors at UBS, JP Morgan and Stifel Conferences to Review Recent Federal Approval of $200 Million of EB-5 Funding for SAF, Biogas, and CCS Projects

Aemetis Chair/CEO Eric McAfee will present and hold one-on-one meetings with institutional investors at the Stifel Cross Sector Insight Conference in Boston on June 5, the UBS Decarbonization Conference in New York on June 6, and the JP Morgan Energy, Power & Renewables Conference in New York on June 17-18.

“The recent approval from the federal government allows $200 million of EB-5 low interest rate funding to build our sustainable aviation fuel, dairy renewable natural gas, and carbon sequestration projects,”  stated Eric McAfee, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Aemetis, Inc. “In addition, in Q4 of last year we sold $63 million of federal Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) tax credits for $55 million. We expect about $450 million of expected future tax credit sales will support funding for our low carbon intensity biofuels projects, which is expected to significantly increase operating cash flow.”

The Riverbank sustainable aviation fuel plant recently received Authority to Construct air permits and is designed to produce 78 million gallons per year when allocating 100% of production to SAF for the aviation market. An aggregate of $3.8 billion of offtake agreements have been signed with ten airlines for SAF supply.

The Aemetis Biogas business now generates positive cash flow from operations, has built 36 miles of biogas pipeline, and is building dairy digesters toward a goal of 75 operating digesters within the next sixty months.

The Aemetis carbon sequestration project at the Riverbank site received a permit to drill a geologic characterization well to obtain samples of the subterranean formations in support of the EPA Class VI CO2 sequestration well permitting process.

With the expansion of these businesses, Aemetis plans growth to more than $1.9 billion of revenues and $645 million of EBITDA in the fifth year of the current Aemetis Five Year Plan.

About Aemetis

Headquartered in Cupertino, California, Aemetis is a renewable natural gas, renewable fuel and biochemicals company focused on the operation, acquisition, development and commercialization of innovative technologies that replace petroleum-based products and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Founded in 2006, Aemetis is operating and actively expanding a California biogas digester network and pipeline system that converts dairy waste gas into Renewable Natural Gas. Aemetis owns and operates a 65 million gallon per year ethanol production facility in California’s Central Valley near Modesto that supplies about 80 dairies with animal feed. Aemetis owns and operates a 60 million gallon per year production facility on the East Coast of India producing high quality distilled biodiesel and refined glycerin for customers in India and Europe. Aemetis is developing a sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) and renewable diesel fuel biorefinery in California to utilize renewable hydrogen, hydroelectric power, and renewable oils to produce low carbon intensity renewable jet and diesel fuel. For additional information about Aemetis, please visit  www.aemetis.com .

Safe Harbor Statement 

This news release contains forward-looking statements, including statements regarding assumptions, projections, expectations, targets, intentions or beliefs about future events or other statements that are not historical facts. Forward-looking statements include, without limitation, projections of financial results in 2024 and future years; statements relating to the development, engineering, financing, construction and operation of the Aemetis ethanol, biogas, SAF and renewable diesel, and carbon sequestration facilities; and our ability to promote, develop and deploy technologies to produce renewable fuels and biochemicals. Words or phrases such as “anticipates,” “may,” “will,” “should,” “believes,” “estimates,” “expects,” “intends,” “plans,” “predicts,” “projects,” “showing signs,” “targets,” “view,” “will likely result,” “will continue” or similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are based on current assumptions and predictions and are subject to numerous risks and uncertainties. Actual results or events could differ materially from those set forth or implied by such forward-looking statements and related assumptions due to certain factors, including, without limitation, competition in the ethanol, biodiesel and other industries in which we operate, commodity market risks including those that may result from current weather conditions, financial market risks, customer adoption, counter-party risks, risks associated with changes to federal policy or regulation, and other risks detailed in our reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including our Annual Reports on Form 10-K, and in our other filings with the SEC. We are not obligated, and do not intend, to update any of these forward-looking statements at any time unless an update is required by applicable securities laws.

External Investor Relations

Kirin Smith

PCG Advisory Group

(646) 863-6519

[email protected]

Company Investor Relations/

Media Contact:

 (408) 213-0940

[email protected]