20. Increasing Flexibility of Biogas Plants Through the Application of Innovative Concepts

After years of strong growth, the biogas industry is facing new challenges today. The traditional mode of operation as a baseload combined heat and power plant for heat and power generation is becoming more difficult with an increasing share of fluctuating renewable energy, e.g., from wind and solar in the power grid, and requires innovative concepts for securing an economic operation of the existing plants. In addition to a change in the operating mode towards a demand-oriented power generation by investment in new storage concepts and increased power generation capacities, new concepts for feeding biomethane (and thus a new economic concept) into the gas grids are becoming increasingly important. Feeding biomethane into the gas grids reduces the dependency on natural gas imports and creates opportunities to link the electricity, heating, and transport sectors of the energy economy. The following sections will present and evaluate the solutions currently available on the market and introduce new innovative concepts, which are currently in focus of various research activities.