Highlights of most recent conferences on biogas, as if you were there!

By | 2018-05-16

Three major biogas conferences were held last April: Biomass Conference & EXPO (IBCE 2018), Global Methane Forum and Waste Expo 2018. BiogasWorld had the chance to take part in the enriching discussions about biogas and renewable natural gas with influential players in the industry. All together, the participants worked on finding solutions to keep developing the sector and to help it grow. Here is an overview of these conferences, the main issues discussed and the actors present.

IBCE 2018

IBCE 2018 took place in Atlanta, USA, between April 16th and 18th. Nearly 1200 participants and more than 100 speakers took part in more than 30 panels. The event brought together numerous industry professionals: bioenergy and biobased products producers, equipment manufacturers and others.

This conference was divided into 4 tracks:

  • Pellets and Densified Biomass
  • Biomass Power and Thermal
  • Biogas and Waste to Energy
  • Advanced Biofuels and Biobased Chemicals

Check out the program of the event.

Expo Hall at IBCE 2018, a biogas conference.

Hundreds of key players from the biomass and biogas industry are gathered in the expo Hall of IBCE 2018.

Panel: Policies, Legislation, Subsidies and the Biomass Thermal Utilization Act (BTU Act)

Major organizations in the industry took part in this panel:

  • American Biogas Council (ABC)
  • Biomass Power Association (BPA)
  • Pellet Fuels Institute (PFI)
  • Biomass Thermal Energy Council (BTEC)
  • Renewable Thermal Energy Collaborative (RTEC)

Discussions focused on the 2017 Biomass Thermal Utilization (BTU) Act. More specifically, the representatives of the organizations talked about the tax incentives offered for renewable energy production, but not for the energy produced from biomass.

Topics discussed include, for example, promotion in the thermal energy industry and the Renewable Identification Numbers (RINs).

Panel: How to finance a biogas project?

This panel was one of the most attended during the conference and featured the presentations from some major organizations in the industry, such as Blue Sphere Corp, Husch Blackwell and EcoEngineers.

The participants discussed issues of the development of the biogas market, the legal aspects of biogas projects and others.

Other interesting panels: Biogas and Waste to Energy track

Several panels of the Biogas and Waste to Energy track have sparked very interesting discussions on other major concerns in the industry.

Representatives from recognized organizations presented examples of successful biogas plant projects. They also demonstrated the latest products and recent innovations in the industry.

You want to know more?

BiogasWorld offers a comprehensive report including the key strategic information discussed during IBCE 2018 now available online. Click here to order your report or check our our other Conference reports here.

Global Methane Forum 2018

The Global Methane Forum 2018 took place in Toronto, Canada on April 16-18, 2018. The event brought together government representatives from around the world, associations and non-governmental organizations.

Check out the program of the event.

Discussions in biogas conference focused mainly on the agriculture and renewable natural gas (RNG) developements.

Technical session on biogas at GMI

Executive director of Canadian Biogas Association, Jennifer Green, during GMI Technical session on biogas.

Biogas in agriculture

Several panels were discussing biogas in agriculture. Representatives of renowned industry organizations led the discussions, including:

Participants had the opportunity to delve deeper into many important concerns in the industry.

We can name, among others:

  • the development status of biogas in Canada
  • Increasing agricultural biogas production in India and subsidies to encourage green jobs
  • new technologies available for large scale biogas projects

The future of renewable natural gas and biogas

Another major part of the conference focused on the development of biogas and renewable natural gas.

A variety of recognized speakers participated in the exchanges, such as:

  • The Canadian Biogas Association
  • Energy Vision
  • United States Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA)
  • Environment and Climate Change Canada
  • German government
  • several other organizations in the biogas and renewable natural gas industry

Stakeholders addressed a number of concerns that will have a strong impact on the future of biogas and renewable natural gas. Energy Vision talked about the power of renewable natural gas. The Canadian Gas Association looked at the future of Canadian utilities and mentioned utilities target of 10% of the energy produced to be renewable by 2030.

For their part, the US EPA and the Canadian and German governments, among others, discussed the need to make the information available. They also spoke about choosing the right communication channels at the right time to adequately promote new developments in the biogas and renewable natural gas industry.

Waste Expo 2018

Waste Expo was celebrating its 50th anniversary this year. More than 600 exhibitors and 12,000 attendees took part to this conference between April 24th and 26th, in Las Vegas. The event brought together professionals from the residual materials, biogas and renewable natural gas fields.

This year, 4 sessions and workshops focused on anaerobic digestion. Check out the program of the event.

Anaerobic digestion and mixed waste processing

This section focused on issues related to anaerobic digestion and organics.

For example :

  • mixed waste processing
  • municipal solid waste pretreatment to prepare organics before digestion
  • use of these materials in the anaerobic digestion process

In addition, Yanerg Scherson of Anaergia discussed how to use a flexible approach to organics recycling from Municipal Solid Waste with anaerobic digesters.

How to properly perform the anaerobic digestion for composting?

A second part of this conference on biogas, among others, involved anaerobic digestion and composting.

The discussions focused, for example, on the following major concerns:

  • optimal food waste recycling
  • the choice of cost-effective collection and processing systems
  • the complexities of feedstock and the financial landscape of the anaerobic digestion

The Canadian biogas market and the energy valuation process

The third set of presentations focused mainly on the Canadian biogas market and the energy recovery process.

BiogasWorld’s CEO, Maxime Lemonde, spoke at this event about major stimulants of Canadian biogas market. In addition, Cedric Vanderbeken from DRYCAKE focused on organics separation and grip removal before energy conversion.

Other representatives of important organizations in the industry also addressed the organic recycling business models, the use of existing Waste Waste treatment plants infrastructure to close the loop on retail unsold food, etc.

Finally, Waste Expo organized a workshop on how to set up a food waste diversion program for, among others, industrial and commercial producers, anaerobic digestion operators and municipalities.

Do you want more information?

BiogasWorld is preparing a comprehensive report summarizing the main points discussed at Waste Expo 2018.

Stay tuned at our biogas event reports webpage.

BiogasWorld: industry-connected

Every day, when we check industry news, we realize: biogas is a sector in full effervescence. To help our members, BiogasWorld plays an active role in the industry and is constantly on the lookout for the latest projects, technologies and technical knowledge. Thus, we look for knowledge of biogas and RNG industry and the vision of its stakeholders and we share ours.

We invite you to consult the list of upcoming events and biogas conferences. Do not hesitate to come and meet us! If you can not come to events, our team will do the work for you. Check out regularly our events webpage for our reports of important biogas conferences.