“It’s a thermoelectric power plant, but, instead of coal you have swine manure and corn,” says Marin Moraru, the owner of the Marex group of companies, which generates more than EUR150 million revenue a year from swine farming and pork processing.
Moraru says he is preparing a EUR6 million investment, partly using European funds, in a 2 MW biogas power plant, using the manure from his farm in Gropeni, Braila County (SE Romania).
How is energy made from that? The swine manure along with corn silage is put into something called digester. As the mix ferments, it releases methane gas, which is then burnt by a motor to generate electricity and thermal power. This will both save Moraru’s farms the expense of ecological disposal of the waste and will also help the farm in Gropeni cut its utility bills, by using the thermal power.
The electricity thus generated will be delivered to the national grid. As a biogas power plant operates around the clock, the same way a natural gas or coal-fired thermoelectric power plant does, a plant like the 2 MW facility that Moraru wants to build should be able to supply almost 7,000 homes for a year.
As an added bonus, the residues from the fermenting process part of the biogas production can be used as a natural fertilizer.
Whereas each major livestock farming company in Romania used it have its own biogas plant supplying heat and electricity before the fall of the communist regime, all such facilities closed when the state-owned farm system broke down.
The installed power in biogas plants currently stands at 6 MW, according to the national grid operator Transelectrica data for the first nine months of 2013. The data only include the plants registered for the support scheme.
Biomass and biogas plants have a competitive edge in the green power subsidy scheme. While some of the allocation of green certificates for wind and solar farms was deferred until 2016-2017, biogas and biomass plants continue to receive two green certificates per megawatt supplied to the grid. They also get a part of another certificate if they use cogeneration, depending on the type of fuel used.
The biggest operational biogas plant in Romania, with an installed capacity of 2.4 MW is the facility in Chiajna, near Bucharest, which turns household waste from the city into power.
Vaslui-based (eastern Romania) egg producer Avicom, heats its farm with the help of a biogas plant running on poultry waste and Aaylex Prod based in Buzau (SE Romania) has a biogas plant near a slaughterhouse.
According to market information, the cost of building a biogas plant is about EUR3 million to EUR4 million per megawatt, which means the power plants covered by the green power scheme are worth no more than EUR25 million.
A number of investments have been announced recently, mainly by farmers willing to put the synergy between agriculture and energy to good use.
“We have an about 600 head cattle farm. Eliminating waste came with environmental costs and we arrived at the conclusion that if we use it in biogas plants we get electricity and address an environmental issue at the same time,” said Florin Balateanu, energy engineer with Agrotrust SRL, a company in Teleorman County (southern Romania).
The company has invested EUR1.2 million in a facility that enables it to generate power. It uses the thermal power to heat part of the farm and part of electricity generated for the farm and the facility itself and has about 170 kW left to supply to the grid.
“We supply about 100 MWh to the national grid every month,” Balatean said.
Agrotrust got its electricity producer license in August and is now working on its application to be accepted into the green power scheme.
It will get about 2.5 certificates per each megawatt supplied to the grid and Balatean says the investment would be not that profitable without this support scheme.
Agrotrust also started trading on the power exchange, OPCOM, where it signed a deal with a power supplier to sell it the electricity produces. It thus has cash flow ensured for the next five years as it stands to collect 7.4 million lei (EUR1.6 million) for the duration of the contract.
“So many sources of renewable energy are being built and we believe the power price will not increase by any more than 10% to 15%, so a longer term contract gives us stability. When you first enter the market and are just starting out, the price is a bit better,” Balatean added.
The investment would be even more profitable, if the farm used more of its energy production for itself.
“The biggest advantage would be for me to use the entire amount of power. At that point, I would be giving 1 KWh to the supplier and use the rest for my consumption. It would be profitable even without subsidies if I used 80% of production for my consumption,” said Nicusor Soare, general manager of Agrotrust.
Self-sufficiency was also the idea behind the investment in a biogas power plant Dan Dragne, the owner of swine farm in Dolj (southern Romania) will develop near his farm.
“Cows are better for energy [generation] purposes, but there is already a pig farm next to the location of the plant and it’s an integrated system. The idea is to create a system that will become self-sufficient someday,” Dan Dragne said.
“You can build a cattle farm next to it and then start processing meat or milk, or build greenhouses. Therefore it stops being an environmental-friendly thing only, you also create jobs in the area. On the other hand, with lower input, the end price of the product will be lower, too.”
His company’s plan is to build a 1.5 MW cogeneration plant.
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)