site.bta10 Biogas Installations Built in Bulgarian Farms since 2012

10 Biogas Installations Built in Bulgarian Farms since 2012


Sofia, January 4 (BTA) - When the EU-backed Sustainable Gas
project was launched in Bulgaria in 2012, the country had two
biogas installations, both of them located in waste water
treatment plants. At present, there are 12 such installations,
10 of them (all the new ones) in the sector of agriculture, the
leader of the project, Borislav Sandov, told a BTA-hosted news
conference.

Sandov noted that every process in agriculture generates waste
and refuse, and the amounts released in animal farming are
particularly large. Such waste and refuse is usually discarded,
incinerated, composted, or just left to rot. The rotting
produces gas emissions, mainly methane, which is harmful to the
environment, he said.

If, however, the methane is caught and treated in special
installations, farms can get heating energy and supply
electricity to the community. As a byproduct, the process
produces fertilizer which can be used in biofarming, Sandov
said.

Biogas installations can help to make communities energy
independent and can provide some extra income for the local
people. This is one of the alternatives in the field of
renewable energy. If the system is developed sufficiently, it
can supply much of the gas needed in Bulgaria, Sandov said.

Albena Simeonova, who heads the Environment and Agriculture
Foundation and the Bulgarian Association for Bioproducts, said
that the Sustainable Gas project involves eight organizations in
 Austria, Germany, Poland, Denmark and Bulgaria. Farmers are
becoming increasingly interested in biogas installations,
Simeonova said. In Germany there are more than 4,500 of them,
providing 95,000 jobs, and the biogas they produce has made
entire villages energy independent, she said.