Visit to the Biogas Plants in Bač

On 25 May 2016, the UNDP Project Team organized a study visit to the site of three biogas plants in Bač. The participants included the UNDP regional technical advisor, Ms Marina Olshanskaya, representatives of the Ministry of Mining and Energy, Serbian Chamber of Commerce, Regional Development Agency Srem, and representatives of municipalities Sremska Mitrovica, Ruma, Pećinci, Šid, Irig, Stara Pazova and Inđija who constitute the inter-municipal working group for energy, and representatives of the UNDP office in Belgrade.

The visit was organized with the objective to present the implementation of three biogas plants project whose construction was supported by a grant awarded under the public call implemented last year by the Ministry of Mining and Energy in cooperation with UNDP. The financial contribution for grants was provided by the Global Environmental Facility (GEF) within the UNDP Project „Reducing Barriers to Accelerate the Development of the Biomass Market in Serbia“. In this specific case, the grant represented 15% of the total investment in the plants, or USD 275,000 per plant. All plants have installed 0.65 MW electric and 0.77 kW heat capacity. Each plant operates within a separate enterprise – BGS Alfa doo, BGS Beta doo, and BGS Gama doo, which are technologically linked with the company BGS Delta doo and Agro Energy doo. The companies were founded in 2011, they are of mixed ownership, and are owned by a group of private investors and companies Megawaste and Enesco from Slovakia. The plants are located on a site occupying a total of 10 ha in the Bač industrial zone. The construction and consequently the operation of the plant has been awarded to the Slovak company IMAO, which works in cooperation with Serbian sub-contractors. The purpose of the plants is to generate electricity from biogas (about 5,340 MWh/a per plant) and produce fertilizer and agro-pellets. The plants are designed to achieve a high efficiency as the heat from the engines with internal combustion will be used for the fermentation process and in the drying plant for production of agro-pellets. Raw materials for the operation of the plants shall include sugar beet residues, sorghum silage, manure from cattle and sheep, and fruit and vegetable residues, the total volume of which is 23,000 t per year. All raw materials are procured from local farmers.

The study visit participants were welcomed by representatives of investors, Mr. Miroslav Dian and Mr. Marian Holubek, and by the President of the Municipality Bač, Mr. Dragan Stašević who in his introductory address emphasized the importance of these investments for the municipality, both during the construction stage in which local labor was used and also in the subsequent stages of operation. He underlined the complexity and interdependency of technological processes in the five plants mentioning that they have increased the revenues of local farmers who deliver agricultural residues as raw material for the operation of the plant. Additionally, farmers will have at their disposal locally produced fertilizer as the residue after fermentation. Apart from intensifying the economic activity in the municipality, the plants provide another benefit for the municipality through the production of solid fuel in form of agro-pellets to be used for heating of private and public buildings.

The participants of the study visit toured the construction site during which the representatives of the developers presented the key elements of the future technological process which begins in trench silos for storing of dry raw materials, whose capacity is 30,000 tons and continues with the system for transport of dry biomass and manure handling system, digesters, collection facilities and transport of biogas to the CHP plant with transformer stations, digestate storages and facilities for production of fertilizer and agro-pellets. The whole technological process is highly automated and enables remote control from one central point.

The UNDP regional technical advisor, Ms. Marina Olshanskaya, praised the quality of the three projects which received GEF grants and noted that the UNDP will be replicating this model of supporting investors in other countries covered by the Regional UNDP Center in Istanbul.