For now, it is fed mainly with waste from corn processing. The largest biogas plant in France is commissioned near Pau, in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques, the TotalEnergies group announced on Thursday (January 12th).
Ten years after the cessation of commercial exploitation of the only French gas field, Lacq, the BioBéarn unit, located in Mourenx about ten kilometers away, “has been injecting biomethane into the network since Wednesday”said Olivier Guerrini, biogas director of the large oil and gas industrial group.
Biogas is gas that is not of fossil origin, and comes from the decomposition and processing of organic waste; it is the same methane molecule as natural gas, which can be injected into gas pipelines.
Initially, biomethane production will reach 69 GWh in 2023, equivalent to the annual consumption of 14,000 inhabitants, and will recover 95,000 tonnes of agricultural waste this year. At full capacity, it should reach 160 GWh/year. The site uses “for the moment mainly waste from the food industry”according to Mr. Guerrini, who insists that there is no “no energy culture in TotalEnergies units” :
“We recover by-products from the corn industry, especially crushed husks, it arrives in trucks, we ensile it and then we methanize it. This waste from the corn industry was sent very far away, we now recover it as close as possible, less than 30 km away. »
“Eighth similar installation in France”
A diversification of inputs, with cattle or pig manure, or residues from the ready-meal industry, is planned and TotalEnergies is working on partnerships to soon also have bio-waste corresponding to waste from supermarkets and collective catering, peelings and other table scraps in buildings.
Six people work daily on the site, which could generate up to thirty indirect jobs, including those who work on the injection of gas or even on the spreading of fertilizers from methanization in the fields, called also “digestate” and containing nitrogen, potash, phosphate or sodium, beneficial for soils. 89,000 tons of these fertilizers will be produced this year.
TotalEnergies, of which it is “the eighth similar installation in France”a “40 to 50 projects which he hopes will be commissioned by 2030 in France”, according to Mr. Guerrini. TotalEnergies is accelerating in biogas after the acquisition, in 2021, of Fonroche Biogaz: the group has two facilities in the United States, one of which is under construction, one also under construction in India and 18 in Poland, thanks to from a recent takeover.