In September, the Energy financial group (EFG) started the scheduled process of increasing the production capacity of the EFG Rapotín BPS biogas plant, which has been supplying certified green gas with a low emission footprint to the grid for five years. The expansion will include the installation of a new biomethane unit with an annual capacity of 40 GWh, more than doubling the current capacity. The current biogas production capacity of 260 m3/hr will thus rise to 750 m3/hr by this autumn.
EFG started the preparatory work needed to increase the capacity of biomethane production from renewable sources at the waste biogas plant in Rapotín, which was the first in the Czech Republic to supply biomethane to the gas distribution system in 2019.
“We have invested approximately 50 million in the purchase and installation of a more efficient production unit for biomethane, which is a locally produced and fully-fledged substitute for fossil fuels. The original unit in Rapotín with a capacity of 16 GWh per year was successfully shut down in September and we are working on replacing it with a larger unit that will allow us to increase production to 40 GWh of biomethane per year,” explains Martin Janda, EFG Production Division Director .
Rapotín biomethane receives sustainability certification for the fifth time in a row
Rapotín’s biomethane comes exclusively from biodegradable waste and is produced with a minimal emission footprint. Thanks to this, EFG Rapotín BPS became the first biogas plant in the Czech Republic to obtain the ISCC EU sustainability certification, and this year it successfully defended it for the fifth year. Measurements are made at several levels, in particular transport (the furthest point of the waste journey), processing of waste as a key raw material and technical emissions such as electricity consumption for biogas production.
“We pride ourselves on achieving high emission savings in biomethane production. We do this mainly by efficiently utilizing biodegradable waste without adding purpose-grown biomass. In the last year, the Rapotín biogas plant was able to operate with a minimum carbon footprint of 5.42 g CO2eq, which represents the most significant year-on-year decrease to date,” says Barbora Formánková, spokesperson for EFG.
EFG plans to move the original unit from the Rapotín biomethane plant to the biogas plant in Vysoké Mýto, which was added to its portfolio last year. By the end of 2025 (and in the following years), the group plans to continue expanding its portfolio of biogas and biomethane plants and investing in new facilities with a total biomethane production capacity of up to 100 GWh. The holding should thus be able to process up to 100,000 tonnes of otherwise unusable, almost exclusively landfilled organic waste annually. In addition, the company is planning other projects to expand its portfolio of renewable resources or power balance services.
