The Institute for Renewable Energy employs a group of experts who have extensive knowledge and experience in the field of biogas utilisation, which was gained during various research projects and co-operation with Polish developers, investors and operators of biogas plants in Poland as well operators of transportation floats for alternative fuels among others for biogas. The offer of the Institute contains the following items:

• the situation of biogas sector on the market of renewable sources of energy and the supporting system for green energy,
• forecasting for biogas prices as a fuel and prices of green certificates elaboration of economical assumptions of the investment,
• evaluation of the possibilities of financing of the investment from outside sources and the choice of the best source for the investment,
• investment procedures and  evaluation of building and exploitation of biogas plants,
• evaluation of the efficiency of biogas production, evaluation of substrate mixtures

Biogas events:

• 2nd International Biogaz 2010 Seminar
• 1st International Biogaz 2010 Seminar

Database of investments, developers and investors in biogas plants Biogaz 2011

Content: information on developers and investors: name, address, telephone, e-mail, registration and VAT number, business profile, legal representatives Board, projects carried out, additional info, detailed sitting of the planned projects, entities involved, installed capacity, project development stage (division into existing, early-stage and late-stage projects)

Going through the investment process is  usually  based on a "learning by doing" principle, thus there is a need to implement foreign experiences, especially backed up by good first-hand case studies. The biogas sector in Poland needs to be considered in a broader perspective of the EU Climate Package "3 x 20%" and in particular the 2009/28/EC Directive. It is expected that the acceptance by the European Commission of the Polish "National Action Plan for RES by 2020," due June 2010; will stabilize the support system for biogas sector.  For the investors it is, therefore, important both to monitor the market in other countries, as well as to know the domestic framework support system.

Legislative changes strengthening the position of RES for the CHP-units were introduced by the Act of 8 January 2010, i.a. introducing a new  definition of agricultural biogas. According to the definition biogas is a gas fuel derived from agricultural raw materials, agricultural products, liquid or solid manure, by-products or residues of agro-food industry or forest biomass in the process of methane fermentation. This means that biogas can be produced from variety of organic substrates ensuring efficient digestion.

RES-E generation has been mainly supported by the tradable green certificate (TGC) quota scheme and the purchase obligation. The support mechanism consists of an obligation imposed on energy companies selling electricity to end users to obtain and present for redemption to the Energy Regulator (URE) a specified number of certificates of origin, or to pay a substitution fee on average. These certificates can be traded either on the bilateral basis or on the Warsaw Commodity Exchange. Failure to comply with this legislation leads to the enforcement of a penalty, which amounts to 130% of the substitution fee. Without fees and penalties the income for the RES producer is the average electricity price plus a green certificate bonus.  The TGC support mechanism does not distinguish between sizes of different technologies and as a result is not favorable for small capital intensive installations. An additional support tool is the  excise tax exemption for RES-E.

The amended Energy Law  clearly resolved the issue of merging of certificates for CHP:  cogeneration certificates can be obtained in addition to the green certificates for renewable electricity: yellow certificates for high efficiency cogeneration below 1 MWe and purple certificates above 1 MWe.

A new thing is also the  possibility to obtain the so-called. brown certificates of origin for agricultural biogas produced and fed to the natural gas network.

In order to obtain a brown certificates  the plant should be registers at the Agricultural Market Agency and then submit the application to URE, additionally endorsed by the gas distribution system operator (OSDg).

Soon a new regulation implementing the amendments to the Energy Law, which will ensure security and smooth functioning of the certification scheme. It should define the quality parameters of biogas and its measurement, registration and calculation method of the amount of agricultural biogas produced (conversion to electricity equivalents) and the connection conditions of biogas plants to natural gas networks. The biomathane for grid market will start in Poland from 2011.