IEA Bioenergy Task 37: Energy from Biogas (Working Period 2025 - 2027)

The main objective of the task is to collect, communicate and exchange knowledge about anaerobic digestion systems and their applications. Biogas systems will be discussed in the context of circular economy processes, with a focus on waste and wastewater management as well as agricultural processes. The work will focus on a wide range of topics that have been important in the past triennia on the one hand and completely new topics on the other. What is new is that Austria will lead the task in the new triennium.

The work on the co-benefits of biogas will continue, as this is an extremely important topic for the sector. In addition to energy production, biogas systems have an impact on resource and waste management, nutrient management and soil quality. They also have a wider impact on society, the economy and the environment.

There is a strong focus on digestate, the by-product of every biogas plant. The increasing biogas activity in the member countries has led to large amounts of digestate that need to be properly utilized in a sustainable biogas industry. Therefore, this topic has gained renewed interest, a topic that has already been addressed in several previous triennia. The work on digestate will address policies, regulations and standards for application in agriculture, best practices, challenges and recommendations.

Another topic will be the economic aspects and costs of avoiding greenhouse gases. Available cost estimates from different countries will be collected and compared in the new work plan, this work will be combined with the calculation of marginal costs of greenhouse gas abatement.

A completely new topic will be the monitoring of mixed microbial cultures in biogas plants. As the sample throughput of DNA sequencing has increased and the costs have fallen considerably, these methods are becoming increasingly interesting for the biogas sector.

Building on the positive experiences of the last three years, the work of the task will also focus on communication and dissemination activities (newsletter, webinars, LinkedIn account) and reports on the use of biogas in the various countries (summary of country reports, case studies).

Dipl.-Ing. Florian Brunner, MSc
Kompost & Biogas Verband Österreich
(Austrian Compost and Biogas Association)
Franz-Josefs-Kai 13
1010 Wien
E-Mail: Brunner@kompost-biogas.info

DI (FH) Christian Platzer, MSc
AEE INTEC
Feldgasse 19
A-8200 Gleisdorf
E-Mail: c.platzer@aee.at

Australia, Austria (Operating Agent), Brazil, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom

DI Dr. Bernhard Drosg
BOKU University
Department of Agrobiotechnology, IFA-Tulln
Institute of Environmental Biotechnology
Konrad Lorenz Strasse 20
A-3430 Tulln
Tel.: +43 1 47654-97462
E-Mail: bernhard.drosg@boku.ac.at