The Potential of the Anaerobic Digestion Sector Under Scrutiny

Carbone 4 conducted a study on the technical and economic potential of the anaerobic digestion sector for a consortium of industry stakeholders. The goal? To analyze the challenges facing the sector’s development, particularly those related to the downstream utilization of anaerobic digestion from the local government’s perspective.

Carbone 4 therefore began by conducting an assessment to identify the obstacles, key stakeholders, and current limitations to the sector’s development—from economic, technical, organizational, and social perspectives. This analysis led to recommendations in each of these areas with the aim of optimizing the sector’s development as much as possible.

The second part of the study identified the development models that the local government should support, based on the externalities it wishes to address. The approach adopted consisted of three phases:

1) understand the current economic circumstances of project leaders;

2) understand the externalities associated with various types of sites and recovery methods;

3) Identify how the community can support the development of the most relevant projects based on the criteria it considers a priority.

The analysis focused on several typical site configurations (on-farm, regional, and bio-waste treatment) and recovery methods (cogeneration, injection, and bio-NGV).  Using five key indicators (production cost, greenhouse gas emissions avoided, cost per metric ton of CO2 avoided, trade balance gains, and net jobs created), this comparative study helped identify the most promising configurations.

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