The aim of this research was to provide a bottom-up estimation of the Hungarian biogas economic potential and supply curve until 2020. We conducted detailed sectorial researches according to the three main sources of biogas production: landfills, waste water works and agricultural plants. Among the many possible ways of biogas utilization, in Hungary currently the most prevalent form is burning it in CHP engines with the prime aim of producing electricity to the grid in return for a subsidized feed-in tariff. In our research we also consider heat-only use (furnaces) and - as an important part of our analysis - the currently nearly absent biogas utilization forms: biogas upgrading to biomethane suitable for feeding into the natural gas grid and for vehicle fuel.

During the research we built up 3 sectoral databases that contain the individual sites and all the relevant and publicly available information. From the individual data on the sites we built up the (bottom-up) potential estimations, the unit cost estimations and the supply curve of each sector. Then as a final step we put together the sectoral estimations into a national level estimation providing a Hungarian biogas potential and supply model.

Finally, apart from analysing the modeling results using the ‘best estimate’ values we identified during the research (base scenario) we included a scenario analysis as well in the report to explore a range of biogas potential and supply curves, and hence to be able to analyze the effect of different regulations.