Biogas

Biogas is the product of anaerobic digestion of organic material, as takes place in manure digesters, at landfill sites and in sludge digesters at sewage treatment plants. Biogas is a gas mixture of mainly methane (CH₄) and carbon dioxide (CO₂) is also a main component in natural gas. Biogas is therefore suitable as a fuel.

Because of its biological origin, biogas is a sustainable energy source. The use of (cleaned) biogas is also encouraged because of the favourable combustion properties of methane. Furthermore, by using biogas the emission of methane (a strong greenhouse gas) can be reduced. By applying upgraded biogas (“green gas”) instead of natural gas, a green house gas emission reduction of 70% can be reached.

Innovative (Tailor Made) Solutions for Biogas
Kiwa Gas Technology offers their services in the area of biogas for more than 20 years. Due to our expertise, built up over many years, we are able to provide tailor made solutions for biogas producers, network companies and end users. Furthermore, we conduct research into the application of biogas in our surroundings.
Kiwa Gas Technology has extensive knowledge in the area of combustion of gases of different compositions and can advise you perfectly using this background when it comes to upgrading of biogas to such an extent that a safe and efficient biogas application can be realised.

We can also advise you about

• The safe use of biogas for supply to end users via the gas distribution network
• The use of unprocessed biogas for local electricity production
• The installation and control of raw biogas pipelines for district heating or use of raw biogas in industrial gas installations
• The use of biogas as traction fuel (CNG as well as LBG)

Specific services which Kiwa Gas Technology provides on biogas are

• Biogas analyses
• Advice regarding gas quality and biogas applications
• Monitoring of gas quality
• Materials research
• Feasibility studies

Biogas Developments in The Netherlands
Up until now in The Netherlands, biogas has mainly been used for electricity production. If the residual heat cannot be efficiently used, however, this is not an optimal solution. This is why the governmental bodies strive for the injection of biogas into the normal gas distribution network. For biogas this means that the purity and energy content must be upgraded first, in order to match with those values for natural gas. Furthermore, the application as traction fuel also offers good prospectives.

According to the Work Group ‘Green Gas’, founded by the Ministry of Economic Affairs, biogas can replace 1-3% of the Dutch natural gas demand in the short term.
The injection of biogas into the gas grid has already occurred in The Netherlands since the nineteen eighties. These were activities of the energy companies who covered the entire chain of production, cleaning, injection and quality monitoring and control. In this period biogas was only produced from landfills. Since 2006 a plant is active in Beverwijk where biogas from sludge digestion at a sewage treatment installation is injected into the gas grid.

According to EU guidelines gas network controllers are obliged to accept the feeding of biogas into their networks on the basis of non-discriminatory grounds. In many countries guidelines containing requirements exist which biogas has to meet. Since November 2006 the guidelines, which Kiwa Gas Technology has set up and advised to an individual gas network controller, have been accepted integrally by the Dutch Competition Authority (NMa) in the document “Aansluit- en Transportvoorwaarden Gas- RNB” (translated as: Connection and Transport Conditions Gas – Regional Network Controllers).
From 1 January 2008, subsidy can be requested and granted for the production of green gas within the new Stimulation Regulation Sustainable Energy Production (”SDE: Stimuleringsregeling Duurzame Energieproductie”).