Biomass fueled biogas plants are in their infancy in Hungary. In 2008 only 1% of renewable energy production was provided by biogas plants, this amounts to approx. 6 PJ. Thanks to investment support by the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development this might change soon. The EAFRD granted subsidies to thirty Hungarian farms to use liquid manure for biogas production. The first projects have been already implemented and so the capacity of biogas plants grew to 7,6 MW in 2009. Further investments are expected till 2011.

Hungary lags behind in terms of biogas production also compared with countries of the Central European region. According to 2007 data only the Polish biogas sector is less developed while the Czech Republic for example produces four times the amount of the Hungarian biogas production. One of the reasons for the slow development is the extremely low feed-in-tariff for electricity made by biogas (approx. 15 euro/kWh) and the complicated and long lasting authorization processes.

Source: www.portfolio.hu