Slovakia could replace part of Russia’s natural gas with biomethane: Is that enough to stabilize the price? – Topky.sk

“In the short and medium term, we see potential of up to 400 million cubic meters.” said Vopálenský. It should be obtained from existing biogas plants, but also from new biomethane plants using biodegradable municipal waste, kitchen and restaurant waste and especially livestock excrement.

There are currently less than a hundred biogas plants in operation in Slovakia, but so far only one has a facility for purifying biogas and obtaining pure biomethane. Current biogas plants mostly produce heat from biogas for their own consumption or electricity. The government counts on a recovery plan with financial support for the conversion of biogas plants into biomethane stations, but only about a third of them will be possible to connect to the gas system. The condition is that they have an installed capacity of more than 0.9 MW, the length of the connection to the gas pipeline should not exceed four kilometers and the operating pressure in this pipeline must not exceed 6.3 megapascals (MPa).

Patrícia Gašparcová from the Slovak Biogas Association pointed out that biomethane is currently about a third cheaper than natural gas. Across Europe, biomethane production could increase to 34 billion m3 by 2030. “The deployment of biomethane produced in Europe could help stabilize the current rise in gas prices due to gas supply disruptions from third parties,” said Gašparcová. However, in order for the sector to attract more investment, clear political support is needed.