Denmark’s largest biogas plant will be established near the town of Tønder which is located in southern Denmark. The investment in the environmental and climate friendly biogas plant will amount to about half a billion Danish Kroner. The investors of the plant consist of the company Envo Group and Jose Cartellone from Argentina. Sweco in Denmark is client consultant on the project.

As client consultant on the project Sweco also prepares a.o. the technical project proposal, the building program, the fertilizer sales, the Environmental Impact Assesment study (EIA), the environmental approval, the gas sales, the risk acceptance and the general contract tender.

With Sweco in the forefront the organizers are in the process of concluding agreements with them to deliver the organic material of which gas is to be produced. This applies primarily farmers who will supply 700,000 tons of manure a year to the plant.

The aim is to complete the manure with approx. 230,000 tons of other organic materials.

It may be waste from dairies, slaughterhouses and other industries. But also the municipal sewage sludge and household waste are suitable organic materials for gas production. In this way, the system will play a major role in local waste, whilst producing biogas.

The plant in Tønder is dimensioned to produce almost 65 million cubic meters of biogas per year. This corresponds to gas in about 17,500 households. The gas is upgraded to natural gas quality and devoted to the natural gas grid, replacing some of the fossil natural gas from the North Sea.

Unlike natural gas from the North Sea the biogas is CO2 neutral. This means that Denmark can reduce the greenhouse gas emissions, along with the biogas coming on line instead of natural gas. And companies that want to reduce their CO2 emissions are given the opportunity to purchase green certificates as proof that they have purchased a portion of the biogas.

The raw material for the plant, the organic material, does not cost the plant anything, and their suppliers have major benefits of entering into agreements for the supply of manure and waste.

The plant borrows the manure of the farmers and afterwords it delivers a better product back to the farmers after the fertilizer has been degassed. The nitrogen has been extracted in a form where it can be absorbed more efficiently by crops. Sweco expects that there will be contracted from 80 to 100 farmers to reach the 700,000 tons of manure a year.

If everything goes according to the plan, the construction work on the plant will begin in the fall of 2014, with completion in late 2014 or early 2015.

The above picture is from Lemvig Biogas in Denmark.