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BEMIP Gas Regional Investment Plan 2017
2.6 Offgrid Market Develop-
ment in the Area of LNG
and Biogas
Offgrid market development in the area of LNG and
biogas in the BEMIP region is rather active in Finland,
Sweden and Poland, which is most probably caused
by new market opportunities brought by LNG and the
limited geographical coverage of natural gas transmis-
sion system.
The offgrid development is partly realised by a local biogas plants that provides
biogas to the adjacent gas user which may be industry, heating, gas filling station or
CHP unit. Also local distribution networks can be formed around the biogas produc-
tion like a satellite network. Furthermore, offgrid solutions are often served as by
using pressurised containers or LNG, especially in Sweden this solution of pressur-
ised containers called “flak” is rather widely used.Another development evolves LNG
terminals (including those not connected to the main gas infrastructure) which may
supply also gas consumers by a local distribution grid or serve another offgrid
location by truck transportation. These LNG terminals are often also used for LNG
fuelled ship bunkering purposes. Market interest for this kind of services is visible
for instance in Poland where the number of LNG cisterns loaded at the terminal in
Świnoujście increased rapidly after putting the facility into commercial operations.
A growing demand for LNG in Poland and other countries in the region together with
legal framework promoting sustainable fuels in the transport sector cause that a
number of different options are currently under consideration to increase regasifica-
tion capacity and to offer new LNG services at the terminal in Świnoujście. These
services include rail-loading, bunkering, reloading to smaller vessels and the devel-
opment of LNG refuelling stations. LNG reloading onto smaller vessels may also be
provided at the FSRU terminal that is planned for implementation in the Bay of
Gdańsk.
The offgrid development has been going on in Sweden for a long time and also rath-
er good progress has also been made in Finland. In Sweden and Finland, there are
several biogas production plants that are not connected to the grid. Some similar de-
velopment takes place in other countries in the region as well, but as noted earlier,
the geographical coverage of gas transmission and distribution systems limits the
need of offgrid development. As an example, Sweden and Finland is analysed in
more detail in the following.
In Sweden, the total amount of produced biogas was about 1.95TWh in 2015 where-
as in Finland it was 0.7TWh in 2014. In Sweden, the amount of biogas injected into
the gas transmission or distribution grid was about 500GWh in 2015 (ten biogas
plants), which means that majority of biogas in Sweden is used in offgrid applica-
tions. In Finland, grid injection in 2014 was about 100GWh (four biogas plants) in-
dicating similar development as in Sweden. The largest biogas consumer in Sweden
was automotive transport at about 60% while in Finland it was heating with a share
of about 60%. There are 282 biogas plants in Sweden (in 2015) and there were 43
in Finland in 2014. In Sweden, a political goal is to increase biogas production to
15TWh/a by 2030 while, in Finland, biogas production is estimated to reach 2TWh/a
by 2030. In order to reach these targets, a remarkable degree of offgrid development
will be required.