The Role of Municipalities, Energy Companies and the Agricultural Sector in Denmark as Drivers for Biogas: Trends in the Current Development

This paper examines the barriers to implementing biogas plants in Denmark and highlights advantages and barriers of the technology with a focus on the environment, energy and the agriculture. The article is based on a detailed study of development trends within the Danish biogas sector and identifies the most important current barriers for the biogas technology namely, difficulties in providing organic industrial waste, unfavorable funding options and low plant profitability. An element in overcoming these barriers concerns the inclusion of stakeholders from the energy sector and engaging municipalities more actively in the biogas development. Based on the analysis of the current situation and of the challenges and opportunities for the Danish Biogas sector, we propose that municipalities, energy companies and the agricultural sector take renewed actions and become drivers for the biogas sector. We identify trends in biogas development and provide suggestions for new stakeholder actions. Municipalities must, for example, facilitate access to new sources of raw materials, enhance energy planning by targeting biogas in their e.g. municipal heat planning. Energy companies should also benefit from the new market opportunities that biogas poses e.g. supply biogas for transportation purposes. Farmers must look for alternative ways of implementing biogas plants using new corporate design concepts rather than traditional centralized and farm biogas plants..