Biogas an all-rounder

Creating Jobs and Protecting the Climate

The villages of Honigsee in Schleswig-Holstein, Theuma in Saxony and Juehnde in the south of Lower Saxony have made the cut: Having achieved energy self-sufficiency with the help of renewable energy sources, they – along with another 50 villages in Germany – have become bioenergy villages. Another 160 villages in Germany alone are also on the way towards energy self-sufficiency, without the use of nuclear or fossil energy sources.

Even though Germany has more agricultural biogas installations than any other country, and German plant manufacturers are the global technology and market leaders, bioenergy has long been prevalent beyond Germany’s borders. Every year, visitor groups from all over the world travel to Juehnde, which in 2005 became the first German bioenergy village to be connected to the grid, to see how energy is generated there. Visitors flock from neighbouring countries, and even from as far afield as Korea, the United States and Japan, to gain inspiration and expertise for their own ideas.

Biogas plants: an export hit

In Europe and all over the world, bioenergy villages served by solar, biomass, hydro and wind power have been springing up like satellites. Examples include Güssing in Austria, the Swedish village of Växjö, and Sand in South Tyrol. German biogas companies today generate annual sales of around 2.3 billion euros, selling their plants not just on the domestic market, but also abroad – predominantly in Italy, as well as in Hungary, the Czech Republic, Latvia, the UK, Austria, France, Poland and Slovakia. The current export ratio lies at around 20 percent.

Becoming a bioenergy village brings many advantages. In addition to supply security and calculable energy costs for the supply of private and municipal buildings, it strengthens the sense of community. Ultimately, it is good to know that even a small village can make a contribution towards protecting the climate.

The small town of Merkendorf near Nuremberg has also achieved its objective of becoming virtually energy self-sufficient. At the end of 2010, its nine biogas plants with a total capacity of over four megawatts generated, in purely mathematical terms, 250 percent of the electricity needed by the small town of 3,000 inhabitants. In addition to the biogas plants, the town boasts around 250 grid-connected photovoltaic installations. The biogas and solar industries in the community have not only led to self-sufficiency, but have also brought about an economic upturn, creating 250 new jobs within the space of just a few years.

Biogas cushions the blow of structural change

The town was once the centre of a cabbage growing area covering 150 hectares. Today, most of the cabbage fields have disappeared, replaced by livestock farming over the years. However, more recently, the number of livestock in the district has also been drastically reduced. Even though the expansion of biogas as a source of income could not halt the ongoing structural change in agriculture, it was able to somewhat soften its negative impact. Today, there are around 160 biogas plants – creating and preserving viable jobs in rural areas.

All biogas plants in Merkendorf also exploit waste heat from the CHP plants – generating a total of almost seven million kilowatt hours, enough to heat around 271 households: the operators of the biogas plants thus supply private homes, public buildings and industrial plants with heat via district heating networks.

Together with his business partner, biogas plant operator Hans Winkler supplies public buildings in Merkendorf with heating energy via a district heating pipe.

Just like many private homes, the “Merkendorf Energy Park” also receives its heat from the biogas plants. By the end of 2010, ten companies from the energy industry had created around 250 jobs here. It is thus almost a matter of course that all the electricity and heating required by the nine-hectare industrial park is covered by renewable energy. In addition to biogas and pellets, photovoltaics and solar thermal installations are also used. 1.3 megawatts of solar power alone have been installed there to date.

Mayor Hans Popp is planning to increase the degree to which waste heat from the biogas CHP plant is utilised by introducing intelligent heating concepts, which could combine biogas plants with wood chip heating systems. In addition, it is intended that mobility concepts using renewable energy sources be developed. The first step in this direction has already been taken with the construction of an electric filling station, and a biogas filling station may also be added in the not too distant future.

Model energy regions

The primary objective is, however, to build on Merkendorf’s success story: a municipal alliance involving four neighbouring communities has become the model “energy region of Altmühl-Mönchswald”, which reached an electricity self-sufficiency ratio of 130 percent in 2010. The aim now is to also become self-sufficient in terms of heating.

Its renewable energy activities have brought Merkendorf national and even international attention, culminating in a recent award in the European Village Regeneration Competition. Mayor Hans Popp has become a sought-after speaker, his calendar bursting with conferences and talks, where he reports on the energy revolution in Merkendorf. Mayors from all over Germany want to learn from Mr Popp’s experience, and visitor groups come from as far away as the Czech Republic, Italy and France.