Opportunities For The Integration Of Existing Biogas Plants Into The Austrian Electricity Market

With the increased expansion of photovoltaics and wind power, the electricity grid, which until then had been supplied centrally and with reliable forecasts, was confronted with decentralised and fluctuating power generation capacities. In future, it will be necessary to make use of further control options to provide for secured and controllable green electricity capacities. This article examines the option of market-oriented electricity production from existing biogas plants in Austria. A targeted survey was conducted to assess the biogas plants' possibilities and limits for flexible electricity production. To determine the economic efficiency of flexible electricity generation, a 500 kW biogas plant was modelled on the basis of the available data. If all Austrian biogas plants with a capacity of 500 kW were integrated into control power pools for provision of secondary control power, an approximate capacity of 35 MW would be available. The results show that an additional premium (compared to base load production) of up to 35.4 Euro/MWh is required to cover the necessary investment and to achieve economic operation. Nevertheless, transformation losses caused by overor under-capacities of wind power and photovoltaics can be reduced by flexible electricity production and active management of biogas plants.