Biogas is a renewable energy source that has gained a lot of interest in the last few years. As it is obtained through the anaerobic digestion of waste by various types of microorganisms, we need microbiomes that deliver predictable results to turn biogas into a reliable fuel.

With the EU currently facing an energy crisis, there is a growing demand for new energy sources to decrease our dependency on external power supplies. How do we turn biogas into the energy of our future?

Biogas as the pacesetter for energy self-sufficiency

Our partners at the Spanish town of Aras de los Olmos want to improve biogas production as part of a bigger project with the ultimate aim to become energetically self-sufficient. A key player in this transformation has been the Universitat Politècnica de València (UPV), also part of the Micro4Biogas consortium, whose team stepped in to assess resource optimization in the town and aid them towards more sustainable solutions. “We made a study of the energy resources of Aras de los Olmos and one of them was biomass”, says Carlos Roldán, Professor at the Department of Electrical Engineering at UPV. As the town’s main economy is livestock, land pollution with pig slurry was a big concern, but as it turns out, animal waste is a useful biogas substrate.

Their goal was to use the biogas generated from manure to produce electricity for the town, along with power from other renewable energy plants. Nowadays, there are two bioreactors that produce biogas on a small scale. One of them acts as a control, while the other contains carefully selected microbial strains whose contribution to biogas production is currently being tested.

A storable energy source for a controlled supply

After biogas is produced, there are a few steps to take to transform this energy source into electricity, as clarifies Guillermo Escrivá, also from the Department of Electrical Engineering at UPV. “Reactors produce biogas on a constant basis. After passing through certain filters, biogas powers an engine with an electricity generator attached to it. This electricity has the same frequency as the town’s power grid and is synchronised with it, allowing for demand-driven electricity production”.

The advantages of biogas compared to other sources don’t stop there. “With biogas, energy production can be controlled”, Escrivá explains. “Other renewable energy sources, such as wind or photovoltaic energy, cannot be stored, so it’s useful to have biogas as a reliable energy source when the others aren’t available”.

A small town paving the way for bigger applications

The work carried out at Aras de los Olmos is making way for other cities to establish similar systems of energy autonomy. However, bigger cities might need to join more efforts to carry out a similar project. As Escrivá states, the simplicity of their energy self-sufficiency project lies in the fact that the town’s demand is small and there are fewer sources to control, but the concept is the same, wherever put into practice.

The European Union is committed to increasing the use of renewable energy sources, so it’s in our hands to promote biogas and make known its numerous benefits to the world. That’s the first step towards a sustainable self-sufficient Europe.

Published On: January 29, 2025

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