1

Biogas Promotion for Electricity Generation, Transport and Household

Energy Access

by

Ambassador Carmen Smidt 2016

2

• Biogas has a significant role to play in ensuring energy security and supporting global initiatives such as sustainable energy for all

• It is both desirable and viable for application in all three major energy demand/supply sectors, namely electricity; heat and transport

• Renewable energy is relatively new in South Africa• Independent power producers have been concentrating on

solar and wind energy• Bio-gas development is still very elementary in South Africa• The government is in the process of refining policy• There is strong commitment to realise this objective

Development of Renewable Energy Sector

3

Development of Renewable Energy Sector . . . /Cont.• At the moment there are only private consumers who produce

for own use • Known ones are for sugar mills and cattle feedlots• So far there is only one bio-gas plant from waste water

treatment plant in Johannesburg• The buyer of power is South Africa’s monopoly power supplier,

Eskom• Under the current Renewable Energy (RE) Independent Power

Producer (IPP) procurement programme or bid process, Eskom will enter into power purchase agreements (PPAs) with the biogas producers.

• There is no law precluding producers to sell to private consumers

Financing Biogas Projects • A financial scheme is being put together with seed

capital provided by the KfW (German bank) to assist small scale renewable energy projects which include biogas

• The Department of Energy is working on the financing mechanism for biofuels (bioethanol and biodiesel)

• The Energy and Environment Partnership Programme (EEP) funded by the governments of Finland, Austria and the UK has provided pre-investment grants to a number of biogas projects

4

Financing Biogas Projects

• One of these is the Bio2Watt plant located outside Pretoria which was commissioned by end of 2014 It has capacity to produce 3 MW Its primary feedstock is manure but will be augmented with other

organic waste • South Africa’s Industrial development Corporation has

contributed Eur7,5 m loan to the Bio2Watt project• Total project costs are estimated to amount to Eur10

million

5

Financing Biogas Projects

• The market for bio-gas is in all the sectors, including electricity, heat and transport

• Government through municipalities and the relevant government departments is looking at bioenergy for transportation

• Some municipal buses are already running on Compressed Natural Gas (CNG)

6

Blending with petrochemicals

7

• In so far as the transport sector is concerned, there is a lot of work that is being done to identify alternatives to petrol and diesel

• Mandatory blending regulations have been promulgated• The Department of transport is revising its 1996 transport

policy with the prospect of promoting other alternative fuels• The study is looking at facilitating large scale uptake of

Alternative Transport Fuels with specific reference to biofuels

Viability of sector projects

• An in-depth analysis of the biofuels for transport value chain (from source, upstream and downstream logistics to consumption in vehicle fleets) has already been completed as part of this investigation

• Given the volumes of waste feedstock, biogas projects are viable

• Its exploitation offers multiple benefits such as waste management, reduction of Greenhouse gases, energy production and job creation and localisation potential

8

Information on funding available at:

www.dti.gov.za

THANK YOU

9