World's Largest Biogas Plant Receives Permit

Together with approximately 30 farmers from the vicinity Könnern, a city of 8000 in Saxony-Anhalt, East Germany, more than 1 billion cubic feet of biological raw gas will be produced every year. More than 500 million cubic feet of biomethane can be processed at the biogas park between Halle and Magdeburg. For this purpose, a little more than 120,000 metric tons of substrate are fermented every year.

"The building permit marks the beginning of the most ambitious project to date in the company‘s history“, says Jens Albartus, Managing Director of WELtec BioPower GmbH. „With its concept of processing gas to biomethane, WELtec BioPower follows an innovative path that is not only locked on to energy policy-related targets but that also meets the current requirements of the Kyoto Protocol and helps reduce CO2 emissions."

Usually, biogas is immediately used for heat and power generation in combined heat and power plants. However, the resulting heat can only be utilised effectively if consumers are available close-by. Such consumers may be public swimming pools, schools, or greenhouses. Thus, the consumption of heat is a decisive factor for the economic efficiency of a biogas plant. If, however, the produced biogas is processed to biomethane, as will be the case at the future Könnern biogas park, such considerations are insignificant. The biomethane will be directly fed in to the natural gas grid, from where it can be distributed to the respective point of consumption. Usually, this approach offers much more efficient utilisation concepts. In contrast to wind and solar energy, this utilisation manner also ensures seamless, permanent energy supply to end consumers. This biomethane generation concept makes use of a CO₂-neutral process. In this way, the environment is actively conserved, and a major contribution is made to the reduction of greenhouse gases. 

Following a building time of about 9 months, which is extremely short for a project of this dimension, the plant is to be launched in the first quarter of 2009, which requires an enormous measure of planning competence. "Thanks to the experience we gained with the approximately 200 biogas plants we set up so far around the globe, we are well equipped for this task," says Jens Albartus. "As we are the only biogas plant manufacturer that builds and sets up the stainless steel plants autonomously, we are capable of installing biogas plants at any location worldwide at any time in a quick and effective manner."

For WELtec BioPower GmbH, the construction of the biogas plant in Könnern represents the next step toward a successful future.

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