Tekniska Verken i Linköping AB has fifteen years of practice from large scale biogas production resulting in far-reaching experience gained from continuously developing new production methods from a wide variety of raw materials. The company group has invested more than 32 mEUR in R&D, pilot plants and full scale production plants. Our company has always maintained the birds’ eye perspective in order to achieve the greatest societal benefit from our product. We have also, via Svensk Biogas AB, taken the initiative in establishing the necessary infrastructure and gone to great lengths to achieve an optimal balance between the location of our plants and our refuelling stations so that transports are brought to a minimum.

In 2006, Svensk Biogas AB supplied vehicles with more than six million Nm3 of bio-methane. Thereby helping Linköping, our home town, precede EU environmental targets fro 2010 by four years! We expect a growth of over 30 percent during 2007.

As a result of the tremendous interest in our product internationally we have started this company, Swedish Biogas International AB. Below is a short description of our experience and technology – further public information can be found in our operational experience report which is available after consulting with the management team of Swedish Biogas International AB.

Biogas production has been sharply in focus in Linköping in recent decades. The driving factor behind the implementation of process development has been that Linköping has throughout had a market that has sought more biogas of vehicle quality. This driving force together with sound group management has ensured that resources in process development have been viewed as important investments. This has meant that a number of projects have been conducted on the plants and that broad experience in all parts of the biogas process has been built up.

The laboratory operations within Tekniska Verken i Linköping AB have been expanded to include analyses and also method development of more specific analyses of sludge as well as various types of substrate. Staff at the laboratory is well acquainted with the processes and can supply rapid analytical responses and communicate them with the management.

At the wastewater treatment plant, the focus has mainly been on the digesters and the stearing conditions such as temperature stability, stirring and gas handling. This is in order to allow stable operation and good continued development of the digestion process. Development projects linked to the digestion at the WWTP has chiefly involved being able to receive further substrate for digestion by reducing incoming sludge. As the digestion process forms part of the great wastewater treatment process, effects from new material on subsequent process steps have been studied. To be able to receive more material and/or a better energy efficiency, dewatering of incoming primary sludge have been conducted in pilot and full scale.

The result of several years’ process development at Linköping Biogas is that the quantity of biogas produced has increased substantially (approx 150%) at the same time as the quantity of fed material remains relatively constant. This change has occurred at the same time as the number of production disturbances has been minimised and are currently extremely few in number. During 2006 the production increased 11% with 6% less substrates into the process.

An important factor in this process development has been work on process-enhancing additions, one of which has been PIX-KMB1. The process development has provided scope for subjecting the process to a higher load and replacing large quantities of manure of low energy content with substrate with a higher biogas potential. The addition is marketed and sold by Kemira.

Economically, this means that it has been possible to defer investments of many millions in increased receiving and digestion capacity to the future and that the biogas company has at the same time had the advantage of focussing the resources on market development and production optimisation instead of solving acute production problems.

The development of the Crop gas concept and Ethanol stillage concept has meant a new approach to biogas production. Instead of an alternative for biological treatment of waste, digestion has come to be viewed as the production of an environmentally friendly fuel. Many lessons have been drawn over this development period, which have benefited all our biogas plants.

Another effect of successful process development work is that it has been possible to minimise the number of disturbances and incidents involving bad odour in Linköping. At the end of the 1990s and the early 2000s, odour nuisance was a real problem, with the result that the media and private opinion turned against biogas production. As the process development work has yielded results, this opinion has changed – as reflected in an issue of the local newspaper in 2005 explaining that the biogas plant no longer smells. The value of this change from a marketing and sales point of view is of course considerable. It has also been an important factor in the permit application for the Crop gas plant in Norrköping. As Svensk Biogas AB has in practical terms been able to demonstrate stable production and efficiency with regard to odours, the application for environmental licensing was approved without any appeals.

Swedish Biogas International AB has prepared a report outlining some of the public knowledge and experience we have developed over the years. The report is available as reference after an initial consultation with the management team of Swedish Biogas International AB.