Future of anaerobic digestion in Germany

Abstract

The introduction of Feed-in tariffs in the German Renewable Energy Act (EEG) fuelled the growth of anaerobic digestion (AD) industry making Germany the country with highest number of operational AD plants. However, the rapid expansion of AD industry resulted in some unwanted side-effects such as food vs fuel debate, increased prices for electricity and the temporal mismatch between supply and demand of electricity grid. Subsequent amendments in EEG has tried to address some of these issues by reduction in Feed-in tariffs, introduction of a cap on cereal based feedstocks and providing premium for energy production in accordance with market demand. Furthermore, the Feed-in tariffs which were introduced for 20 years are soon going to expire. The changes in legal and political discourse is soon going to introduce some new challanges to the AD industry. This paper has discussed some of these challanges and their potential solutions.