Number of biomethane plants should almost double, their capacity triple in 2025- Bioenergy Association head
There are already four biomethane plants in Ukraine, one of which produces bio-LNG, three more, including one for the production of bio-LNG, are planned to start operating during 2025, said the chairman of the board of the Bioenergy Association of Ukraine, Heorhiy Heletukha.
"We (in the bioenergy sector) have the most positive news in biomethane. Since 2021, there has been basic legislation, since 2024 - export is allowed. Now four plants are already producing biomethane and have started exporting. Three more are completing the conversion of capacities from biogas to biomethane and will start its production in the near future," said Heletukha during the conference of the We build Ukraine think tank "Green Energy for Reconstruction" in Kyiv on Thursday.
According to the presentation he gave, currently biomethane production is carried out by Gals Argo LLC (Chernihiv region, annual capacity 3 million cubic meters), VitAgro group of companies (Khmelnytsky region, 3 million cubic meters), MHP (Dnipropetrovsk region, 11 million cubic meters), and MHP in Vinnytsia region produces bio-LNG at a plant with a capacity of 24 million cubic meters.
In 2025, Teofipol Energy Company in Khmelnytsky region plans to produce biomethane, which will have the largest capacity so far - 56 million cubic meters, as well as Gals Argo LLC in Kyiv region (3 million cubic meters). In addition, Yum Liquid Gas LLC in Vinnytsia region plans to produce bio-LNG in the volume of 11 million cubic meters. As noted in the presentation, the total biomethane production capacity by the end of the year will be 111 million cubic meters.
Heletukha noted that so far the export of biomethane to Europe is burdened by a number of problems, but he called them growth problems.
"The EU is not very ready, there is the Union Database (a system for recording liquid and gaseous biofuels within the framework of the EU Renewable Energy Directive, RED II), which has not yet started working for gases and it is not clear how it will work with Ukrainian biomethane. But these are growth problems. In general, the European biomethane market is in short supply, there is a memorandum between Ukraine and the EU on cooperation in renewable gases, there is a desire to buy our biomethane. And Ukraine has bright prospects in its production, for now for export, and then for domestic consumption," explained the expert.
At the same time, in his speech, he noted that the development of bioenergy, which could replace significant volumes of scarce natural gas, is hampered by a number of factors, in particular, the subsidized price for gas, which deprives bioenergy projects of competitiveness, as well as the presence of a tax on CO2 emissions for bioenergy, the law on the abolition of which has not yet been adopted in full. He pointed out that according to the latest open data, in 2020 biomass replaced almost 5.2 billion cubic meters of natural gas, and this trend should continue.
