The sensitivity of agricultural biogas plants to changes in energy prices in Poland

Abstract

In Poland, despite ambitious plans from 15 years ago, when it was assumed that by 2020, an agricultural biogas plant would be standard in every commune, the potential of agricultural biogas has not been used due to the lack of stable legal regulations and financing programmes for the construction of the plants. The situation has now changed due to new forms of support systems, which motivated the authors to compare two agricultural biogas plants operating in the certificate system and the support system in the form of feed-in premiums. Moreover, the authors pointed to differences in the number of agricultural biogas plants and their capacity by voivodeship due to changes in legal conditions in force in two periods: from 1 January  2011, to 30 June 2016, and from 1 July 2016, to 19 January 2024. Based on the research methods used ‒ including Earnings Before Interest, Taxes Depreciation and Amortisation, the Internal Rate of Return, risk matrix and data analysis in spatial terms ‒ it was indicated that: 1. agricultural biogas plants are characterised by very high sensitivity related to the probability of risk in the case of investment costs, substrate prices and changes in energy prices; 2. financial support is important at the stage of construction of a biogas plant, which largely makes it possible to shorten the payback period and thus increase the willingness of future investors to invest in biogas plants and 3. in the periods analysed, significant differences were noted in the spatial location of biogas plants due to trends towards lower-power biogas plants, which is probably dictated by the constant and predictable premium system in the new support system.