climate protection by small-scale biogas in switzerland

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Climate protection by small-scale biogas in Switzerland

GHG Report – Bundle II – in accordance with ISO 14064

Monitoring periods 2018 and 2019

Project Proponent: Genossenschaft Ökostrom Schweiz

Document prepared by: GES Energie GmbH

Date of Report: 22/09/2020

Version Nr.: 002

Monitoring periods: 01/01/2018 - 31/12/2018

01/01/2019 - 31/12/2019

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GHG Report Bundle II - Monitoring 2018-2019 - Version 2.0 – September 2020

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1 Project Description................................................................................................................ 4

1.1 Project title .............................................................................................................................. 4

1.2 The project’s purpose(s) and objective(s) ......................................................................... 4

1.3 Expected lifetime of the project............................................................................................ 6

1.4 Type of greenhouse gas emission reduction or removal project .................................... 6

1.5 Legal land description of the project or the unique latitude and longitude .................. 6

1.6 Conditions prior to project initiation .................................................................................. 9

1.7 Description of how the project will achieve GHG emission reductions or removal

enhancements ................................................................................................................................. 10

1.8 Project technologies, products, services and the expected level of activity ............... 12

1.9 Total GHG emission reductions and removal enhancements, stated in tonnes of CO2

e, likely to occur from the GHG project (GHG statement) ........................................................ 14

1.10 Identification of risks .......................................................................................................... 15

1.11 Roles and Responsibilities ................................................................................................. 15

1.12 Any information relevant for the eligibility of the GHG project under a GHG program

and quantification of emission reductions ................................................................................. 16

1.13 Summary environmental impact assessment ................................................................. 17

1.14 Relevant outcomes from stakeholder consultations and mechanisms for on-going

communication................................................................................................................................ 18

1.15 Chronological plan ............................................................................................................... 18

2 Selection and justification of the Baseline Scenario ............................................................ 20

3 Description of how the Project leads to emission reductions that are additional to the

status quo ................................................................................................................................... 24

4 Inventory of sources, sinks and reservoirs (SSRs) for the project and the baseline ........... 31

5 Quantification and calculation of GHG emissions / removals ............................................. 35

5.1 Calculation of Baseline Emissions from Manure Management .................................... 35

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5.2 Calculation of Baseline Emissions from fossil fuel heating ........................................... 40

5.3 Project Emissions ................................................................................................................ 42

5.4 Emission Reductions ........................................................................................................... 47

6 ISO 14-064 principles.......................................................................................................... 48

6.1 Relevance .............................................................................................................................. 48

6.2 Completeness ....................................................................................................................... 49

6.3 Consistency ........................................................................................................................... 49

6.4 Accuracy ................................................................................................................................ 49

6.5 Transparency ....................................................................................................................... 49

6.6 Conservativeness ................................................................................................................. 49

7 Monitoring the data information management system and data controls.......................... 51

8 Monitoring Report for the years 2018 and 2019 ................................................................ 60

8.1 Project status ........................................................................................................................ 60

8.2 Data and parameters ........................................................................................................... 61

8.2.1 Data and parameters available at validation ............................................................... 61

8.2.2 Data and parameters monitored .................................................................................. 65

8.3 Emission reductions ............................................................................................................ 69

8.3.1 Emission reductions from destruction of methane .................................................... 70

8.3.2 Emission reduction from substitution of fossil fuel heating....................................... 73

8.3.3 Project emissions ........................................................................................................... 76

8.3.4 Total emission reductions ............................................................................................. 77

9 Reporting and Verification details ...................................................................................... 79

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1 P R O J E C T D E S C R I P T I O N

The project activity is the operation of 14 small-scale agricultural biogas plants in

Switzerland. The plants use manure from animal farms and co-substrates to produce

renewable heat and electric energy. All the installations are already in operation but face

difficult legal and economical background to continue operation.

The usage of manure in biogas plants strongly reduces the uncontrolled emissions of

methane to the atmosphere that appear during open manure storage. The heat captured

from the combustion of the biogas can be used for applications where fossil fuels have been

used before. CO2 emissions from the combustion of fossil fuels can be reduced this way.

This Bundle II is the second bundle of small-scale biogas plants, following Bundle I, which

greenhouse gas (GHG) project plan has been verified by TÜV Rheinland on the 24.07.2012, in

accordance with the ISO 14-064-2 Standard. Bundle II follows the same purposes and

objectives as Bundle I.

The GHG report of Bundle II has been verified by TÜV Rheinland on the 04.05.2020, in

accordance with the ISO 14-064-2 Standard.

In the current Report, the emission reductions from the years 2018 and 2019 are monitored

according to the monitoring plan of the corresponding GHG Report of Bundle II.

1.1 Project title

Climate protection project by small-scale biogas in Switzerland – Bundle II.

1.2 The project’s purpose(s) and objective(s)

The project’s purpose is the reduction of GHG emissions through the use of manure in biogas

plant and through the substitution of fossil fuel with heat from those biogas plants. The

marketing of the climate protection benefit in form of voluntary emission reduction units

should ensure the further operation of the plants, that face legal and economic difficulties.

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The main project’s objective is to continue the production of renewable energy to achieve

GHG emission reductions, so that an additional revenue can be ensured.

At the moment, the economical operation of biogas plants strongly depends on a sufficient

income from both the revenues from production of the renewable energy and the revenues

from disposal of non-agricultural biomass (biomass that is not the result of agricultural

business like e.g. manure, the so-called co-substrates). As the income from disposal of non-

agricultural biomass has become less and less over the last decade, the economic situation of

the biogas plants has deteriorated continuously.

Except the production of renewable energy and of the reduction of GHG, the plants

contribute to an augmented use of manure as energy source. The situation in Switzerland is

that manure remains the only source where the potential is not already bailed out. It is

important to realize that biogas farmers in Switzerland do not voluntary switch to a

strengthened use of manure but as a consequence of the disappearance of other (non-

agricultural) biomass fractions. This statement is underlined by the rising share of manure in

the substrate mix of the biogas plants and the resulting increase in emission reductions.

More information about the circumstances in Switzerland’s biomass market is provided in

chapter “Description of how the Project leads to emission reductions that are additional to

the status quo” in Chapter 3.

Further project objectives are the creation of additional employments in local and regional

areas with the focus to remain the added value in rural environment, and to fit the needs of

sustainability such as the sanitation impact of fermented manure, the reduction of manure’s

odour, improved quality of fertilizers and smaller amounts of biomass road transports.

Another important purpose is the complete closure of the plant nutrient cycle which means

that all nutrient elements from the input material remain in the output in order to fertilize

agricultural land. No plant nutrient will be destroyed or burned.

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1.3 Expected lifetime of the project

Calculated lifetime for biogas projects in Switzerland is 20 years beginning with the starting

date of operation. This expected lifetime is also used within the legal base of the Swiss feed-

in tariffs.

1.4 Type of greenhouse gas emission reduction or removal project

Carbon dioxide (CO2)

The project will generate clean electricity from biogas in a combined heat and power plant

(CHP). To avoid double counting (in terms of emission reductions) or double aiding (in

terms of financial support) the production of renewable electric energy itself is not

considered.

The project activity also reduces CO2 emission by replacing heat on fossil basis by heat

generated by the CHP. In absence of the project, the heat would partially be produced with

fossil fuels, depending on the single project and its Baseline.

Methane (CH4)

The project activity collects biogas that is generated by anaerobic digestion of manure and

co-substrates in a closed system. After collecting and processing, biogas is combusted in a

CHP. In absence of the project activity, the methane would emit into the atmosphere in an

uncontrolled manner during its storage.

1.5 Legal land description of the project or the unique latitude and longitude

The projects are located nearby existing animal breeding farms spread over Switzerland.

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Figure 1: Project locations (Source: Google Earth 2019)

No Project name Adress Location Canton Longitude Latitude1 Gansner Biogas Hauptstrasse 16 8512 Graltshausen TG 47°35'55.45"N 9°10'49.41"E2 BGA Bütschwil Bütschwil 205 3054 Schüpfen BE 47° 1'17.83"N 7°22'18.73"E3 BGA Jordi Fohlenweidstr. 8 5525 Fischbach-Göslikon AG 47°22'6.76"N 8°18'59.45"E4 BGA Luder Neuhof 12 3422 Kirchberg BE 47° 5'54.78"N 7°33'59.99"E5 Biogas Spitzhof Spitzhof 1 6014 Luzern LU 47° 3'51.70"N 8°13'15.17"E6 Halbmil Biogas Deutsche Strasse 65 7000 Chur GR 46°53'10.52"N 9°32'25.30"E7 Hawisa Hasenhusen 4 6221 Rickenbach LU 47°12'3.15"N 8° 9'19.61"E8 Winzeler Erlengasse 16 8240 Thayngen SH 47°44'37.21"N 8°42'18.11"E9 BGA Langackerhof Langackerhof 2 4146 Hochwald SO 47°27'48.29"N 7°38'49.77"E

10 BGA Val Biogas Grosseye 4 3930 Visp VS 46°17'54.97"N 7°51'0.27"E11 BGA Martin route de cremières 2 1070 Puidoux VD 46°29'35.78"N 6°47'12.65"E12 BGA Josef Ott Aahusweg 43 6403 Küssnacht a. Rigi SZ 47° 5'52.72"N 8°26'28.02"E13 Davos Biogas GmbH Duchliweg 13 7260 Davos-Dorf GR 46°47'58.09"N 9°50'54.27"E14 Schürch Bütikofen Bütikofen 15 3422 Kirchberg BE 47° 4'57.59"N 7°36'51.42"E

Table 1 Project locations

The following table shows the contact data and the owners of the projects:

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No Project name Project owner Phone E-Mail1 Gansner Biogas Hansjörg Gansner +41 (0)71 636 15 48 [email protected] BGA Bütschwil Urs Dietrich +41 (0)79 414 16 91 [email protected] BGA Jordi Franz Jordi-Camenzind+41 (0)79 234 86 59 [email protected] BGA Luder Beat Luder-Mathys +41 (0)79 727 45 05 [email protected] Biogas Spitzhof Josef Kilchmann +41 (0)79 479 50 12 [email protected] Halbmil Biogas Reto Mani +41 (0)79 206 45 01 [email protected] Hawisa Urs Erni +41 (0)78 649 41 14 [email protected] Winzeler Winzeler Andres und Martina+41 (0)79 423 34 46 [email protected] BGA Langackerhof Josef Vögtli +41 (0)61 751 96 52 [email protected] BGA Val Biogas Max Stalder +41 (0)79 220 73 24 [email protected] BGA Martin Georges Martin +41 (0)79 894 63 01 [email protected] BGA Josef Ott Josef Ott +41 (0)79 215 69 71 [email protected] Davos Biogas Toni Hoffmann +41 (0)79 690 84 81 [email protected] Schürch Bütikofen Beat Schürch +41 (0)79 721 01 32 [email protected]

Table 2 Addresses and responsible persons

All biogas plants (their operators respectively) in this Bundle are organized in “Ökostrom

Schweiz”, a cooperative of mainly small farming enterprises for the promotion of local

renewable energy from biogas in Switzerland. Those operators assigned Ökostrom Schweiz

to organize this climate protection program and to commercialize the resulting certificates,

both run in entire bundles due to reduce transaction costs.

In addition, Ökostrom Schweiz runs a platform for external (non-agricultural) biomass,

because large suppliers of external biomass produce more volume than one single

agricultural plant is able to process. Therefore, the platform closes the bargain and

distributes the substrates to several biogas plants close to the locations of the supplier.

Also, Ökostrom Schweiz takes over the political lobbying in order to maintain good general

framework conditions, provides exchange and education courses for both, farmers who start

with their plants and farmer who already runs their plant a longer period.

Every project owner has closed a contract with Ökostrom Schweiz that grants the ownership

of the resulting certificates to Ökostrom Schweiz.

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1.6 Conditions prior to project initiation

The manure when kept in open-top basins, lagoons open to the atmosphere or storage pits

will undergo anaerobic fermentation and release greenhouse gases (CH4, CO2 and N2O) to the

atmosphere.

Before the project activity, the co-substrates (biogenic waste) from industrial, private or

state origin (such as lop from the municipality) were used in agricultural biogas plants, those

materials were prior usually applied in composting. As composting is an aerobic biological

process, GHG such as methane will end up uncontrolled in the atmosphere. By using those

materials in agricultural biogas plants, both advantages were used at the same time: the

production of green energy and the prevention of GHG from the formerly usage in

composting. The latter won’t be considered, due to the lack of reliable databases concerning

the emissions of the composting process.

The polluting effect of the manure will be reduced by the fermentation process not only in

the aspect of greenhouse gas emission reductions, but also by reducing the odour from

fertilizing with untreated manure. Need for externally bought artificial fertilizer decreases

because the utilization of biomass from agricultural area and related business closes the

nutrient cycle when the digestate is brought back to the field. The emission reductions from

the lower application of artificial fertilizer won’t be considered neither, because of the

relatively small additional GHG-reduction compared with the expected costs for GHG Report

and monitoring.

Agricultural enterprises will also benefit from biogas by diversification of their production.

In general, if a diversification is run, the farming system by trend switches to a lower

intensity of soil-use with its positive consequences on fertility and shape.

Concerning the heating theme before the project activity, there were different Baseline for

fossil fuel heating between the projects. In some projects, heating systems were replaced that

were run with fossil fuels. In other projects, there has been no heating systems run by fossil

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fuel in the time before the construction of the biogas plant. So project activity will partially

replace fossil fuel heating systems.

1.7 Description of how the project will achieve GHG emission reductions or removal

enhancements

CH4 Emission Reductions

The project activity is the technical production of biogas using manure that otherwise would

emit uncontrolled methane into the atmosphere during its storage. In absence of oxygen,

bacteria in the manure will automatically begin to form methane. The longer the storage

(depending on the storage type), the more methane is formed.

During project activity, the manure will be brought directly into the digesters of the biogas

plant and the formed methane will be captured in a gastight system. Together with other

gases that occur during decay of the substrates, it forms the biogas with a methane content of

50-75 %1 .

The collected biogas will be combusted and destroyed in a Combined Heat and Power engine

(CHP). Result of the combustion process is CO2. This gas is also a greenhouse gas (GHG), but

those emissions cannot be addressed as emissions caused by the project for two reasons:

1. The combustion process of biomass is considered to be CO2 neutral in the calculations

following the IPCC principles2. The amount of CO2 that is emitted by biomass combustion is

the same amount that has been bound by the plant during its growth. The carbon cycle of

(non-wood) biomass is short in contrast to fossil fuels which have been formed over decades.

This does not mean that biomass utilization does not cause carbon emissions. Emissions

from processing and transport, for example, are considered as project emissions.3 Other

1 See https://biogas.fnr.de/daten-und-fakten/faustzahlen/2 IPCC 2006 Guidelines do not have emission factors for Biomass (See Chapter 1.4.2.1). Eventual emissions from biomass occur from

land use change which is included in the AFOLU sector.3 Also see FAQ at IPCC (Q1-2-10): http://www.ipcc-nggip.iges.or.jp/faq/faq.html

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possible emissions like land use change can be excluded for this project and will be discussed

in the chapter 5.3 about the project emissions. This process will reduce the CH4 emissions

from open storage of manure. As there is no obligation at the moment to change the common

practice (also see Chapter 5 about the Baseline), this reduction can only happen by the

proposed project activity.

2. The GHG potential of CO2 is 28 times less than the potential of the CH4 that is burned and

destroyed in the CHP.

The use of animal manure in the biogas plants will lead to CH4 emission reductions.

CO2 Emission Reductions

The electric energy produced by the CHP will replace an amount of electricity generated with

conventional technology and will reduce emissions corresponding to the technology mix

used for power generation in Switzerland. Despite the Swiss power production already

causes low emissions (29,8 g CO2/kWh in 20194), the consumed energy has significantly

higher emissions (181,5 g CO2/kWh in 20195) caused by import of power from European

countries.

Even with only assuming the Swiss power production mix as the Baseline, the production of

renewable energy from installations in this bundle reduced emissions to the extent of an

average of 247 t CO2e per year.

However, the net GHG mitigation from the electricity approach is neutralized in order to

avoid conflicts with double counting (direct or indirect influence on installations under the

European Emission Trading System, EU ETS). Although Switzerland does not take part in the

EU ETS at the time of the emission reduction of those monitoring periods, there might be an

indirect influence on installations with emission reduction obligations, because Switzerland

4 See https://www.bafu.admin.ch/bafu/de/home/themen/klima/publikationen-studien/publikationen/projekte-programme-

emissionsverminderung-inland.html (p. 92)5 See „Umweltbilanz Strommix Schweiz“ http://treeze.ch/fileadmin/user_upload/downloads/589-Umweltbilanz-Strommix-Schweiz-

2014-v3.0.pdf (p. 5)

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is connected to the European electricity grid. The production of renewable energy from the

demand site could cause less production in another installation. This activity would set free

allowances and grant reduction certificates at the same time.

The thermal energy from CHP will in some cases be used for heating where a fossil fuel

heating was used before.

The avoided usage of fossil fuels can be addressed as CO2 emission reduction.

1.8 Project technologies, products, services and the expected level of activity

The project is an anaerobic wet fermentation setup with a grid connected Combined Heat

and Power plant (CHP) attached. The source of biogas in the projects is a share of 50 – 100 %

of manure and a variety of co-ferments like vegetable wastes or wastes from the food

industry.

The plants use very different types of substrates, mainly a mixture of a high share of manure

and a variety of organic wastes. This is a typical composition for biogas plants in Switzerland

which is caused by the conditions for governmental support. The projects in this bundle use

an average of 70% of manure in their total input mix. The usage of manure has partially

increased due to a lack of available co-substrates.

The process of biogas production is similar in all plants and follows the standard processes in

developed countries. The biogas production starts with collection of manure in the mixing

tank. Manure that comes from the own farm will be directly transported via pipeline.

From the mixing tanks the digesters are continuously fed with manure and co-substrates. In

the anaerobic environment of the digesters methane bacteria metabolize the methane at a

temperature of 38-45°C (mesophilic). The process is very complex and includes the sub steps

hydrolysis, acidification, acetic acid generation, and methane generation.

Because of its complexity the process is very vulnerable to temperature changes and

substrate composition. Result of this process is biogas with a methane content of ca. 50-65%

depending on the methane building potential of the substrates. The biogas will be collected

under a membrane top and directed from there to the CHP plant. The top can also serve as

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gas storage. After processing (removal of sulphur and water) the biogas is burned in a gas

engine. A Generator converts the mechanical energy to electric energy. The electricity will be

directed to a transformer station and from there fed into the electrical grid, which in

Switzerland is owned by Swissgrid.

In the swiss biogas sector, it has become state of the art to install a second CHP or a flare

(stationary or mobile) in order to avoid methane emissions during non-operation of the

main CHP.

The digestate will be either moved to a post digester or directly to the digestate storage,

depending on the technical setup of the biogas plant. The digestate is a good fertilizer

because it still contains the nutrients that are necessary for plant growth but with a reduced

amount of carbon that has been converted to Methane and combusted.

Figure 2: Biogas process scheme

All the plants in this bundle follow the above shown schematic process of biogas utilization.

The projects use a variety of different substrate types which means a challenge to the

operation because the biology is more difficult to control with varying amounts of different

substrates.

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The project activity treats biomass that would otherwise been left to decay anaerobically in

an animal waste management system, but not biomass or other organic matter that would

otherwise been left to decay anaerobically in a solid waste disposal site or in a wastewater

treatment system.

1.9 Total GHG emission reductions and removal enhancements, stated in tonnes of CO2 e,

likely to occur from the GHG project (GHG statement)

The estimated reduction of GHG emissions from project activity of Bundle II over the project

period lifetime will be around 50,000 t CO2e:

No Project name Project duration Crediting periodAverage emission reductions

per year [tCO2e/y]Total emission reductions over

crediting period - Bundle II [tCO2e]1 Gansner Biogas 2012-2032 2016-2032 146 2.3342 BGA Bütschwil 2013-2033 2016-2033 336 5.7153 BGA Jordi 2006-2026 2016-2026 153 1.5284 BGA Luder 2010-2030 2016-2030 208 2.9115 Biogas Spitzhof 2014-2034 2016-2034 226 4.0746 Halbmil Biogas 2006-2026 2016-2026 395 3.9487 Hawisa 2006-2026 2016-2026 297 2.9738 Winzeler 2010-2030 2016-2030 612 8.5739 BGA Langackerhof 2016-2036 2016-2036 160 3.19510 BGA Val Biogas 2006-2026 2016-2026 777 7.77311 BGA Martin 2007-2027 2016-2027 204 2.24312 BGA Josef Ott 2009-2029 2016-2029 69 89613 Davos Biogas 2004-2024 2016-2024 169 1.35414 Schürch Bütikofen 2016-2036 2016-2036 100 1.998

3.852 49.513

Table 3 GHG emission reductions per year and over the crediting period of Bundle II

As all installations are already in operation, the average emission reductions per year are

calculated based on the monitored data for 2016 and 2017.

The GHG statement is verified by TÜV Rheinland Energie und Umwelt GmbH towards a

reasonable level of assurance. Since there is no quantitative threshold defined by ISO 14064

Standard, the threshold shall be defined as 5 % of the overall GHG project emission

reductions, which is in line with e. g. the materiality thresholds stipulated in the EU

monitoring guidelines applied to facilities with CO2 emission of less than 500 ktCO2e.

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1.10 Identification of risks

The technical operation of biogas plants faces considerable risks. The fermentation process

within the digesters is depending on several factors. The most important factor is the

bacteria which are producing enzymes. These enzymes are starting a fermentation process

which begins with breaking up the manure into its components. In other words, the

fermentation in the biogas plant is a biological process which relies on microbiological

deposition of the materials used in the process.

Unlike the co-substrates, manure is commonly used in numerous biogas plants around the

world. The technology and substrates applied in the fermentation process are pretty much

standardized which reduces operational risks. As the fermentation process is easily

perturbed when the substrate inputs vary in their amounts and components, the feeding of

co-substrates presents a risk regarding to the stability of the process.

According to that, there is a risk that once the process is running, it could be disrupted by

failures resulting from fluctuations of the material quantity or quality into the digester. An

interruption could cause a complete operation breakdown and would make a complete

restart of the process necessary, what takes weeks to achieve.

To mitigate this risk, Ökostrom Schweiz acts as a platform where the plant operators can

exchange their experiences with the different co-substrates and ways to run the plants.

The risk that the biogas plant might not be able to continue operation due to market reasons

like a lack of co-substrates or other barriers is covered in the chapter 3 about additionality.

1.11 Roles and Responsibilities

Ökostrom Schweiz assigned GES Energie GmbH with the GHG Report, but remains the legal

owner of the resulting certificates, which means, that the certificates will be transferred to an

Ökostrom Schweiz account on a registry account to be defined. After having sold the

certificates, Ökostrom Schweiz will pay out the net benefit to every single biogas plant in this

bundle, according to their reduction volume. The roles and responsibilities concerning the

Carbon Management are summarized in the table below:

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Organization: GES Energie GmbH Ökostrom Schweiz

RoleReport author & developer ofprojects set up as climate protectionprojects

Report contributor & owner of thecertificates

Street /P.O. Box Domstrasse 11 Technoparkstrasse 2City Hamburg WinterthurState/Region Hamburg ZürichPostal code 20095 8406Country Germany SwitzerlandContact person Ms. Pauline Kalathas Dr. Victor AnspachPhone +49 (0)40 80 90 63 220 +41 (0) 56 444 24 71Fax +49 (0)40 80 90 63 199 +41 (0) 56 444 24 90

Email [email protected] [email protected]

Table 4 Responsibility for Carbon Management

1.12 Any information relevant for the eligibility of the GHG project under a GHG program and

quantification of emission reductions

ISO 14064 focuses on GHG projects or project-based activities specifically designed to reduce

GHG emissions or increase GHG removal.

The proposed biogas power plants are designed to recover the methane emissions from the

manure management system and utilize it to generate electricity and heat, which is eligible

for a GHG project.

In some of the projects of this bundle, the heat produced by the biogas plant will be used and

consequently, will displace the use of fossil fuel. This project activity reduces the CO2

emissions and is also eligible for a GHG project.

Concerning the reduction of CO2 emissions through the production of renewable electricity:

The Swiss government has set the baseline emissions of electric power production above 0 g

CO2/kWh for the first time in its revision of the “Vollzugsweisung” in 2015, taking into

consideration, that the power production actually does cause a certain amount of emissions

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from fossil fuel combustion (29,8 g CO2/kWh). Still the consumed electrical energy mix in

Switzerland is even higher polluted by a 181.5 g CO2e/kWh, as described in a previous

chapter. However, due to regulation of EU-ETS, the net GHG mitigation from the electricity

approach (replacement of fossil fuel generated electricity) is neutralized in order to avoid

(indirect) double counting effects that would come up by feeding electricity to the grid.

Therefore, this report only involves the emission reduction from methane recovery from

manure management and from carbon dioxide through thermal energy generation.

The presented project activity is considered by CDM Methodologies AMS III.AO “Methane

recovery through controlled anaerobic digestion” in its 1st version, based on AMS III.D

“Methane recovery in animal manure management systems” in its 21th version, and by AMS

I.C “Thermal energy with or without electricity” in its 21th version.

1.13 Summary environmental impact assessment

An environmental impact assessment is legally binding in Switzerland for installations with a

total treatment capacity of at least 5,000 tons of total input material6. Three of the

installations in this Bundle exceed this threshold and conducted an impact assessment:

Project 02 (BGA Bütschwil), Project 08 (Winzeler) and Project 10 (BGA Val Biogas).

The result of the impact assessment was that the installations were not eligible to seriously

harm the environment. For biogas plants using more than 5,000 t of input material, the

environmental impact assessment is always part of the construction permit. In addition, all

agricultural biogas plants of this existing Bundle II contribute to a significant higher

ecological sustainability compared to a reference scenario without manure’s treatment by

using biogas plants. This especially means the improved quality of digestated manure and

the reduction of odour emissions. The complete listing of environmental advantages is

described in chapter 1.2.

6 See https://www.fr.ch/sites/default/files/2018-12/LW-10_biogasanlagen_inderlandwirtschaft.pdf , Chapter 3.10.1, page 23

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1.14 Relevant outcomes from stakeholder consultations and mechanisms for on-going

communication.

Stakeholders are the community that may be affected by operation of the biogas plant. Before

the operation of a biogas plant, the usual fears of Stakeholders are that there will be

malodour coming from the biogas plant and an increase of traffic through the transports of

biomass going to the biogas plant.

As a part of the building permit, residents have the possibility to object to the construction.

Even if in some cases, there has been complains about potentially disturbances from odour,

the building permit has been granted in every case. That means the project operators have

informed the Stakeholders about the real impacts of a biogas plant in a way that the

unfounded fear of malodour disappeared. A biogas plant does, if operated properly, not emit

more odour than an agricultural enterprise under common practice would do anyway. So, a

negative impact on the relevant Stakeholders cannot be expected.

On the contrary, the fermented manure (digestate) is much less smelling than manure,

whereby all the region around the biogas plant benefits from this positive impact when

digestate is brought out on the fields.

It can be noticed, that since the plants are running, plant operators often feel a support for

small peripheral green energy producers from Stakeholders such as neighbours,

administration or other farmers supplying the biogas plants with their own manure. Since

the swiss government’s decision of 2011 to leave nuclear electricity production soon, this

support has even significantly increased.

1.15 Chronological plan

The project duration is 20 years beginning with the start of operation, as the usually

expected lifetime of biogas projects is 20 years (see chapter 1.3).

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No Project name Start of construction Start of operation Project duration1 Gansner Biogas 01.01.2002 18.06.2012* 2012-20322 BGA Bütschwil 20.06.2013 23.12.2013 2013-20333 BGA Jordi 01.01.2006 01.10.2026 2006-20264 BGA Luder 16.10.2009 20.03.2010 2010-20305 Biogas Spitzhof 25.04.2013 24.01.2014 2014-20346 Halbmil Biogas 01.01.2006 12.06.2006 2006-20267 Hawisa 01.01.2006 25.08.2006 2006-20268 Winzeler 30.06.2009 20.02.2010 2010-20309 BGA Langackerhof 01.01.2016 01.10.2016 2016-203610 BGA Val Biogas 01.01.2005 01.01.2006 2006-202611 BGA Martin 01.01.1999 15.09.2007* 2007-202712 BGA Josef Ott 01.01.2009 01.10.2009 2009-202913 Davos Biogas 01.01.2004 24.11.2004 2004-202414 Schürch Bütikofen 20.08.2016 22.10.2016 2016-2036

* Valid date of start-up with introduction of the new CHP

Table 5 Dates of construction and operation start of the projects

To reduce the transaction costs, the monitoring and the verification of the emission

reductions will take place every 2 years, as it is handled with Bundle I.

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2 S E L E C T I O N A N D J U S T I F I C A T I O N O F T H E B A S E L I N E S C E N A R I O

The Baseline represents the most plausible scenario in absence of the project activity and the

basis to calculate the emissions that are expected in this scenario. To determine the Baseline,

the status before and during project activity and alternatives are compared and discussed.

This project applies Kyoto Standards for the determination of Baseline and Additionality.

Because a project in Switzerland would equal a Joint Implementation project (Annex I

country), the JI Standard is closer to the project’s reality than the CDM.

The conference of the Parties (COP), serving as the meeting of the Parties of the Kyoto

Protocol, defines the Baseline of a Joint Implementation Project in Annex I, Appendix B,

paragraph 17 as follows:

“The baseline for an Article 6 project is the scenario that reasonably represents the

anthropogenic emissions by sources or anthropogenic removals by sinks of greenhouse

gases that would occur in the absence of the proposed project.”

The COP decided that methodologies "for baselines and monitoring, including methodologies

for small-scale project activities, approved by the Executive Board of the clean development

mechanism, may be applied by project participants under joint implementation, as

appropriate" (paragraph 4 (a) of Decision 10/CMP.18).

Baseline – Methane emissions

The baseline regarding manure management “is the situation where, in the absence of the

project activity, biomass and other organic matter (including manure where applicable) are

left to decay within the project boundary and methane is emitted to the atmosphere” (CDM

7 See https://unfccc.int/resource/docs/2005/cmp1/eng/08a02.pdf#page=28 See https://unfccc.int/resource/docs/2005/cmp1/eng/08a02.pdf#page=14

21


Methodology AMS III.AO in its 1st Version “Methane recovery through controlled anaerobic

digestion” 9)

This represents the most plausible scenario in absence of the project activity and must be the

basis to calculate the emissions that are expected in this scenario. For the calculation of the

baseline emissions, the AMS III.AO refers to the CDM Methodology AMS III.D in its 21st

Version “Methane recovery in animal management systems” 10.

The simplest and most possible scenario in absence of project activity is the continuation of

the current common practice (see below in table 6 “Common practice”). In chapter 1.6 of this

report about the “Conditions prior to project initiation”, this practice is described. Manure is

stored in manure management systems that do not avoid the emission of methane into the

atmosphere.

An alternative scenario that would significantly reduce emissions is the gastight storage of

manure and the flaring (see below in table 6 “Alternative activity 1”). As there is no legal

requirement to take measures that mitigate methane emissions from manure storage, it is

not plausible that farmers would implement such an investment in the amount of several ten

thousand CHF without any return.

The present project activity without the income from sale of the verified GHG emission

reductions is another alternative scenario to the common manure management practice (see

below in table 6 “Project scenario”). The barriers that hinder the biogas plants from further

successful operation has been described in detail in Chapter 3.

An overview of plausible baseline scenarios and respective barriers that those different

alternative scenarios are facing is shown in table 6 below.

Type of barrier Common practice Alternative activity 1 Project scenario

9 See https://cdm.unfccc.int/methodologies/DB/F5U41CTG7ENWK9RSSL5BV1LUPDG76W10 See https://cdm.unfccc.int/methodologies/DB/H9DVSB24O7GEZQYLYNWUX23YS6G4RC

22


Description Manure stored in

manure management

systems

Gastight storage of manure and

gas flaring

Biogas plant with electricity

production supported by governments

funds (feed-in tariffs), without the

revenues of emission reductions sales

Financial

Economic

Barrier

Discussions

Not a barrier -

No financial

incentives to change

the existing practice.

Barrier -

High investment costs to rebuild

the storage tanks to gastight

manure storage tanks with

flaring device.

No revenues for this methane

mitigation measure. No

regulation to capture and destroy

the methane emissions from

manure storage systems.

Barrier -

Feed-in tariff too low to cover i. a. the

costs of high amounts of manure as

main substrate input

(transport/digestion volume).

Payments for treating the co-

substrates are lower or have even

turned to costs since the operation of

the plants (see Chapter 3 for details)

Technology

Operation,

Maintenance and

Disposal Barrier

Discussions

Not a barrier - Barrier -

Specific equipment and

operations required

Barrier -

Specific equipment and operations

required

Data Reliability

and Limitation

Barrier

Discussions

Not a barrier - Not a barrier - Barrier -

Need product weights and

measurements to use methodology

appropriately

Present, Future

Conditions and

Proliferation

Barrier

Discussions

Not a barrier - Not a barrier - Barrier -

Price and availability of co-substrates

unsecure (see Chapter 3 for details)

Legislative

Barrier

Discussions

Not a barrier -

No legal regulations

that would force a

change in existing

practice

Not a barrier - Not a barrier -

23


Prevailing

Practice

Discussion

Not a barrier -

This is common

practice

Barrier -

This is not common practice

Barrier -

This is not common practice

Table 6: Identified plausible baseline scenarios with barrier test

Baseline – Carbon dioxid emissions

When determining the baseline for the heating system (applicable Methodology is the AMS

I.C that covers fossil fuel replacement by renewable energy11), it must be considered if the

old heating system would have been replaced also in absence of project activity. This might

be the case because of legislation, because the lifetime of the installed heating is overdue or

because another alternative is more cost efficient. If the baseline is a renewable energy

heating system, no reductions can be claimed for the utilization of CHP heat.

There is no legislation in force that requires the farmers to install renewable heating. In this

Bundle, the already installed fossil heating systems are all run by heating oil, which is cost

effective, so that there would be no economic reason to replace them. The installations have

a long enough expected rest lifetime though, so it is not likely that they will be replaced for

economic reasons.

11 See https://cdm.unfccc.int/methodologies/DB/VJWCB0FBX89L3K73D4S1QPUP0UBXGC

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3 D E S C R I P T I O N O F H O W T H E P R O J E C T L E A D S T O E M I S S I O N

R E D U C T I O N S T H A T A R E A D D I T I O N A L T O T H E S TA T U S Q U O

This chapter refers to the question why the installations would not continue operation

without the additional income from sale of the verified GHG emission reductions. This is

called “additionality” in the UNFCCC terminology. It is defined in the COP decision 4/CMP.1,

Annex II, paragraph 2612 as:

“A [small-scale] CDM project activity is additional if anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse

gases by sources are reduced below those that would have occurred in the absence of the

registered [small-scale] CDM project activity”

As shown in chapter 2 “Selection and justification of the baseline scenario”, the Baseline is

the business as usual scenario.

Referring to AMS-III.D, “Project activities may demonstrate the additionality by showing that

there is no regulation in the host country, applicable to the project site, that requires the

collection and destruction of methane from livestock manure. If so, it is not required to apply

the “Guidelines on the demonstration of additionality of small-scale project activities” 13.

As there are no regulations in Switzerland that requires the collection and destruction of

methane from livestock manure, it is theoretically not required for this project bundle to

demonstrate additionality according to the “Tool for the demonstration and assessment of

additionality14”. However, in order to give a better understanding of the challenging situation

of biogas projects in Switzerland, approaches from this Tool will be used to show that the

benefits of CO2-certificates are absolutely needed to avoid negative economical results and a

12 See http://www.ciesin.columbia.edu/repository/entri/docs/cop/Kyoto_COP001_004.pdf, page 4813 See https://cdm.unfccc.int/filestorage/1/A/W/1AWXEKHVTYF423LCN56Z9GIMQOS8JR/EB96_repan09_AMS-

III.Dv21.pdf?t=bzV8cTNzOW44fDCjREpmE5ommuebaOzKy2bW, page 614 https://cdm.unfccc.int/methodologies/PAmethodologies/tools/am-tool-01-v5.2.pdf/history_view

25


possible laying in of the biogas plants. The barriers will be identified that hinder the biogas

plants from further successful operation.

The situation on the Swiss biogas market is evaluated in the following.

Biogas plants are usually supported by governmental funds to encourage their spreading

because conventional energy production is more competitive. The main motivations for

support of biogas are:

· local value for the community resulting in positive macroeconomic effects,

· energy independence and

· international obligations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Worldwide, the biogas technology is only present in countries with a strong support from the

government. This shows the strong dependency of biogas technology from financial aids15.

The initial development in Switzerland differs a little. Some of the installations received no

feed-in-tariff when they started operation. Feed-in tariffs have been introduced in January

200916 (half of the installations of this Bundle was already in operation). Before the feed-in

tariff, the economical operation was only possible because the plants received payments

from the disposal of organic wastes. Today the payments are lower or have even turned into

costs because the demand has grown in the last decade. Another share at this time resulted

from the bundled sale of the green electricity by Ökostrom Schweiz. Today, the market for

domestic green electricity made from biomass broke down, because more and more buyers

(i.e. electricity entities) supply their request by contracting cheaper green energy from wind

and water overseas. On auction platforms like green-energy-marketplace, it can be observed

that (even small) green electricity offers meet no demand 17. Green electricity there is mainly

sourced by solar power. Green electricity from biomass is not sold at all.

Increasing competition for co-substrates

15See http://www.ecoprog.com/publikationen/energiewirtschaft/biogas-to-energy.htm16 http://www.news.admin.ch/message/index.html?lang=de&msg-id=4327617 http://www.green-energy-marketplace.ch/index.php?section=procure

26


Agricultural biogas plants in Switzerland were initially intended to dispose both, manure and

organic wastes for example from gastronomy and the food industry in a ratio of 50% /50%.

This ratio was commonly used due to legal position of land-use regulation politics, which

means that agricultural biogas plants were allowed (and still are allowed) to convert a

maximum of 50% of non-agricultural biomass into their plants situated in the agricultural

zone of Switzerland’s zoning plan. The revenues from disposal have been very important

parts of the economic calculation and the availability of co-substrates is essential for the

economic operation of the plant. But with the introduction of feed-in-tariffs in 2009 and with

increasing numbers of installations - particularly large-scale industrial biogas plants and

wastewater treatment installations also producing biogas - the competition became much

stronger and disposal prices decreased rapidly. The price deterioration of co-substrates was

massive, as shown exemplarily in the following two samples:

- From disposal of biomass waste from the purification of wheat, biogas farmers

earned up to CHF 90 per ton in 2008, while in 2013 the price referred to CHF 0.-18. This

tendency continued and the price for the wastes turns from revenues to costs19 due to the

fact that some industries seem to be ready to pay for organic waste in order to use it as

substitution of fossil combustible.

- Around 2010, biogas farmers could realize a disposal revenue of CHF 30 per ton of

glycerine, a high energy density liquid co-substrate. In the period 2013 to 2018, the market

demanded a payment of CHF 350 per ton 20.

What those two examples show is in general applicable to every single co-substrate which

can be used to produce biogas. The price deterioration doesn’t occur that extremely for all

co-substrate of course, but it is clearly to adhere that the revenue that farmers receive for the

disposal of co-substrates are steadily decreasing and, in some cases, have even turned to

costs.

18 Division of external biomass coordination of Ökostrom Schweiz, Milchstrasse 9, 3072 Ostermundigen19 Division of external biomass coordination of Ökostrom Schweiz, Milchstrasse 9, 3072 Ostermundigen20 Division of external biomass coordination of Ökostrom Schweiz, Milchstrasse 9, 3072 Ostermundigen

27


There is absolutely no indication for a reverse of this trend, in contrary – disposal fees (and

availability) for co-substrates will definitely continue to sink in the next decade (see below)

and for some substrates turn to costs instead of disposal revenues.

In summary, we can state for the swiss co-substrate market that a veritable battle about

digestible input material broke out with serious consequences on quantities and prices for

non-agricultural co-substrates.

As a result of this development, the biogas plants in this Bundle have increased their share of

manure in the substrate mix. Manure as a substrate has comparative low energy potential

and as a result has higher costs of handling and storage per produced cubic meter of biogas.

As a result, from an economic point of view, co-substrates are favoured over manure. Manure

input is mainly driven by the requirements of the feed-in tariff and eventually the amount of

manure that is produced in the agricultural enterprise that is connected to the plant.

But the high costs and low availability of co-substrates made manure less unfavourable

again. The use of manure also leads to additional emission reductions. The income that the

biogas plants receive from the marketing of the climate benefit does in this aspect contribute

to the calculation in favour of manure.

The market situation for co-substrates is not the only severe barrier for biogas plants in this

Bundle, following some other barriers will be listed.

The role of industrial competitors

In the past years, also big industrial biogas plants had been installed in Switzerland. Those

plants are not associated with a farm and operate with an average required biomass input of

20.000 to 30.000 tons each (while the average input of plants in this bundle is ~5,000 t

including manure). With increasing scale plants are able to pay higher prices because the

relation between (investment and operation) costs and electricity production capacity is

more favourable. For those reasons, bigger plants can pay more (or receive less) for the co-

substrates than the small agricultural plants. It is not only the fact, that those large industrial

biogas plants directly compete against agricultural plants about the digestible material; but

28


in most cases, owner of those plants are some of the biggest electric enterprises in

Switzerland21. So, in case of financial losses, those enterprises are in a strong position to

support the plants in a monetary way and they already do it. Agricultural biogas plants in this

Bundle belong to small farming enterprises that cannot afford to compensate losses from the

operation of a biogas plant. Kompogas plays the most important part in the development of

large-scale industrial biogas plants in Switzerland. Kompogas is a company owned by Axpo,

one of the biggest electric utilities in Switzerland.

A similar situation can be stated by analysing the market behaviour of wastewater treatment

plants (ARA:“Abwasserreinigungsanlage”): After introducing Swiss feed-in-tariffs, many

large waste water treatment plants started to dispose co-substrates in raw quantities in

order to produce green electricity. Because the infrastructure to overtake external biomass

was already installed by the majority, those plants were able to dispose organic material by

using very low disposal prices. In this context it should be mentioned that wastewater

treatment plants are owned by the public authorities and are financed through fees22.

Moreover, those plants do not close nutrition cycles because of mixing harmless co-

substrates with harmful household wastewater in the same digesters. The consequence of

this operation is that all dried slurry has to be burnt and the included nutrition elements

such as azote, potash and especially phosphor cannot be recycled as fertilizer.

The lack of alternatives

Observing the common practice of biogas digester feeding in other European countries may

lead one to the use of energy crops as an alternative as substrate input for biogas plants in

this Bundle. Energy crops are plants or parts of them that are intentionally produced for the

production of renewable energy. In contrast, co-substrates can be addressed as by-products

or wastes. Energy crops are no alternative in Switzerland. On the judicial point of view, the

law about Swiss feed-in-tariffs punishes biogas plants using a significant volume of energy

21 For example Axpo (http://www.axpo-kompogas.ch/index.php?path=home&lang=fr) or Groupe

(http://www.greenwatt.ch/de/news.18/die-biogasanlage-von-seedorf-fr-offnet-ihre-ture.152.html)22 ARA Bern, as an example of ~700 ARAs in Switzerland: http://www.arabern.ch/unternehmung/ueber-uns.html?&L=1

29


crops by paying lower tariffs if the biogas plant uses more than 20 % of input material that is

not manure23. Despite rising prices, co-substrates are still cheaper than energy crops. On the

other side, all stakeholders (administration, public opinion, neighbours, politics, etc.) in

Switzerland are explicitly against biogas plants operating with energy crops. They are not

accepted due to the problematic with the use of farmland for energy production instead of

comestible goods24.

Another alternative could be the switch from the use of co-substrates to the enhanced use of

manure. But this does not solve the economic problem. Beside the fact, that manure has a

much lower energy density per unit, existing biogas plants have been configured to operate

with up to 50% of co-substrates. This means that the entire plant concept wouldn’t fit

anymore. In addition, the enhanced use of manure for already existing plants would lead to

longer transport ways. This is ecologically not worthwhile and has its economical limits due

to transportation costs.

New requirements on technical and operational issues

After the introduction of Swiss’ feed-in tariffs for biogas plants in 2009, a wide range of new

regulations for its operation have been installed over the last decade. Some of them are still

in the phase of a political debate, but independently of the finalized result, it can be clearly

stated that those regulations have impacted new and existent biogas plants with higher

requirements and costs for managing and operating.

As always when new regulations are introduced, it is clear that some of the measures are

appropriated, but some are far away from workability, especially under a cost analysis

perspective. Many of the new requirements have increased administrational/managing costs

and provoked constructional cost over-runs.

23 http://www.admin.ch/opc/de/classified-compilation/19983391/201404010000/730.01.pdf, page 70, paragraph 6.5, point e.2.24 Biomass strategy of Switzerland:

https://www.infothek-biomasse.ch/images//180_2010_BFE_Biomasse_Energiestrategie_Schweiz.pdf, page 16, paragraph VIII.

30


Large share of low energetic manure

A requirement for the subsidy and especially the land-use regulations is a share of at least 50

% of animal manure. Animal manure has a very low energy content (compared to energy

crops or co-substrates) because it is composed of at least 90% water and hence requires a lot

of digester volume. Bigger digesters mean higher investments and make the CHF/kW ratio

unfavourable. Also, the volume of digestate increases which leads to further problems such

as conflicts with legal acts about land-use planning for example.

As a result of the above barriers, the agricultural biogas plants face several severe challenges

that make economic operation difficult even with the feed-in tariff. The sale of the emission

reductions from these projects will lead to additional income that can compensate the

decrease of disposal revenues and the increase of co-substrate costs. As the projects are

endangered of discontinuation and the marketing of verified GHG emission reductions can

lower that risk, the emission reductions can be addressed as additional.

31


4 I N V E N T O R Y O F S O U R C E S , S I N K S A N D R E S E R V O I R S ( S S R S ) F O R

T H E P R O J E C T A N D T H E B A S E L I N E

BASELINE SSRS Controlled Related AffectedHow the GHG SSR change from the

baseline scenario to the project?

GHG Source

1) CO2 emission

from fossil fuel

consumption to

generate electricity

and/or heat in

absence of the

project

√

The thermal energy generated by

the project activity will replace

thermal energy that has -in some

of the installations- been generated

by fossil fuels and in this aspect

reduce the CO2 emission.

2) CH4 emission

released during the

degradation

process of manure

√

The project will collect CH4 via

biogas digester and combust it in a

CHP. In absence of the project

activity the CH4 will be released

into the atmosphere in an

uncontrolled manner.

3) N2O and CO2

emission from the

production of

artificial fertilizer

√

The closed nutrient cycle of project

activity will make some of the

artificial fertilizer redundant,

reducing the demand for it.

Production of artificial fertilizers is

energy intensive and greenhouse

gases are formed during the

process.

32


PROJECT ACTIVITY

SSRSControlled Related Affected

How the GHG SSR change from the

baseline scenario to the project?

GHG Source

4) CO2 emission

emitted from the

project activities

consumption of

electricity or heat

produced with

fossil fuels.

√

There will probably be

consumption of electricity or heat

produced with fossil fuels by the

project activity, which will emit

CO2.

5) CO2 emission

from burning of

diesel fuel by

trucks transporting

manure and co-

ferments

√More transports than in baseline

scenario are likely to appear.

6) CH4 emissions

from leakage or

incomplete

methane

combustion.

√Biogas may escape through not

tight tubes or cracks in the digester

or the membrane roofs.

GHG Sink

7) CO2 and Nitro-

gen sink in the co-

ferments probable

used in the project

√

The project will possibly use co-

ferments to augment electrical

production or to supplement the

nutrient element in the biogas

digester. In that case, part of CH4 is

generated by the degradation of

co-ferment, which is against GHG

sink.

33


Table 1: Inventory of sources sinks and reservoirs

Criterion for relevance of a source, sink or reservoir is an emission (reduction) that counts

for at least 1% of the calculated total emission reduction of project activity25. SSRs that do

not meet this criterion will not be considered. Also, only SSRs controlled by project activity

will be considered.

In this report, Source 1 and Source 2 meet the criterion of relevance and will be considered.

Source 3 and 7 are not controlled and therefor will not be considered.

Source 4, 5 and 6 will not be considered for following reasons:

Source 4 (CO2 emission emitted from the project activities consumption of electricity or heat

produced with fossil fuels)

In spite being relevant by definition above, Source 4 will not be considered because no

reductions were claimed for the production of renewable electric energy. Project activity has

a positive balance regarding emission from electric energy production.

Considering the emissions from energy consumption while not considering the reductions

from production of renewable energy would result in an unfair valuation. According to a

study from Ökostrom Schweiz, the own consumption of biogas accounts for 11,2 % of the

produced energy in average.26

Source 5 (CO2 emission from burning of diesel fuel by trucks transporting manure and co-

ferments)

Usually, those emissions do account for less than 1% of total emission reductions. Experience

showed that biogas plants with a small radius of substrate supply do not cause relevant

emissions from transport of biomass. By far, most of the manure comes from the farm that is

connected to the biogas plant and no transport takes place. Co Substrates with low energy

25 See „Guidance on criteria for baseline setting and monitoring, Version 03, §14 (a) iii”, Joint Implementation Supervisory Committee26 https://oekostromschweiz.ch/wp-content/uploads/190730-Branchenbericht-Betriebsphase-2017_D.pdf

34


value have usually low transport distances because transport costs are relatively high

compared to the low benefits from a low energy density substrate. Only highly energetic

substrates like glycerine will be transported over distances > 10 km.

Source 6 (CH4 emissions from leakage or incomplete methane combustion)

This source is estimated as irrelevant because state of the art technique is not supposed to

leak a significant amount of methane. The Swiss federal environmental authority BAFU

publishes guidelines for the implementation of environmental regulations for the building

and operation of biogas plants that the responsible authorities (those who give the permits)

have to follow. Gas storages for example “…must be gastight, compression proof, media and

UV durable according to the state of the art” 27 . Requirements for gas installations in general

are: “… must be gastight and be able to stand the pressure” 28 . In practice, implementation of

this guidelines means that after construction of the digesters the contracted company must

approve and certify the tightness. Manufacturers of gas pipes and membrane roofs also must

certify that their products will not cause gas leakage. Not only legal but also economic

aspects motivate the project owner to keep the system gastight. Methane combustion is the

process that generates energy and therefore the income of the plant. A high loss of methane

would make a biogas plant economical unfeasible. Technical measurements to avoid

methane leakage here include gastight gas pipes and digesters as well as tested plastic roofs

especially made for gas storage.

27 Biogasanlagen in der Landwirtschaft: Ein Modul zur Vollzugshilfe Umweltschutz in der Landwirtschaft, BAFU 2016

https://www.bafu.admin.ch/bafu/de/home/themen/wasser/publikationen-studien/publikationen-wasser/biogasanlagen-in-der-landwirtschaft.html, page 2928 Biogasanlagen in der Landwirtschaft: Ein Modul zur Vollzugshilfe Umweltschutz in der Landwirtschaft, BAFU 2016https://www.bafu.admin.ch/bafu/de/home/themen/wasser/publikationen-studien/publikationen-wasser/biogasanlagen-in-der-

landwirtschaft.html, page 51

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5 Q U A N T I F I C A T I O N A N D C A L C U L AT I O N O F G H G E M I S S I O N S /

R E M O VA L S

5.1 Calculation of Baseline Emissions from Manure Management

The calculation of CH4 emissions from manure management is based on UNFCCC CDM small-

scale methodology AMS III.AO in its 1st version, which refers to the AMS III.D in its 21st

version for this calculation. This methodology has been chosen because it “covers project

activities involving the replacement or modification of anaerobic animal manure

management systems in livestock farms to achieve methane recovery and destruction by

flaring/combustion or gainful use of the recovered methane. It also covers treatment of

manure collected from several farms in a centralized plant.”29 This methodology can be used

because the following conditions of applicability of the methodology are all met:

(a) The livestock population in the farm is managed under confined conditions;

(b) Manure or the streams obtained after treatment are not discharged into natural

water resources (e.g. river or estuaries)

(c) The annual average temperature of baseline site where anaerobic manure

treatment facility is located is higher than 5°C (around 10 °C in Switzerland)

(d) In the baseline scenario the retention time of manure waste in the anaerobic

treatment system is greater than one month

(e) No methane recovery and destruction by flaring or combustion for gainful use

takes place in the baseline scenario.

The AMS III.D leaves the choice to estimate the Baseline Emissions based on the number of

animals (option A in paragraph 9) or based on the quantity of manure and its specific volatile

solids content (option B in paragraph 9).

29 See https://cdm.unfccc.int/filestorage/1/A/W/1AWXEKHVTYF423LCN56Z9GIMQOS8JR/EB96_repan09_AMS-

III.Dv21.pdf?t=cmp8cTh2a3l1fDAq3LIJEYCYamt2YA2xD5u3, p. 3

36


In our case, the approach with manure input (option B) is more applicable because the

number of animals contributing to the manure input can hardly be determined, especially

when the manure comes from different sources.

Accordingly, the formula used to calculate the Baseline Emissions is as follows:

Where:

BEy Baseline Emissions in year y (t CO2e)

GWPCH4 Global Warming Potential of CH4 (t CO2e/t CH4)

DCH4 CH4 Density (0,00067 t/m³ at room temperature (20 °C) and 1 atm pressure)

UFb Correction factor to equal model uncertainties (0,94)

j Index for animal manure management system

LT Index for all types of livestock

MCFj Annual methane conversion factor (MCF) for the baseline animal manure

management system j

B0,LT Maximum methane producing potential of the volatile solid generated for

animal type LT (m³ CH4 / kg dm)

Qmanure,j,LT,y Quantity of manure treated from livestock type LT and animal manure

management system j (t/y, dry basis)

SVSj,LT,y Specific volatile solids content of animal manure from livestock type LT and

animal manure management system j in year y (t/t, dry basis)

Qmanure,j,LT,y

Deviant from the Methodology, the manure input is not measured on a dry base but on the

amount of fresh manure, as it is the practice in Switzerland. The reason for that is that fresh

manure is the main data on which is based the calculation for the feed-in tariff for electricity

37


production in Switzerland. It means that all the manure deliveries are stated by the farmers

in an annual report to either the cantonal ministry of agriculture respectively the ministry of

environment or to Swissgrid (the national grid company), in order to calculate the exact

feed-in tariff, which depends on the amount of used manure.

The concrete responsible authority is always the authority that has also issued the operation

permit and differs between cantons.30 Basis of this report is the GRUD 2017 (Grundlagen für

die Düngung landwirtschaftlicher Kulturen in der Schweiz = principles of fertilization of

agricultural cultivation in Switzerland). The GRUD publishes scientifically measured values

for manure production of different animal stock types in Switzerland. GRUD is the official

reference for reporting nutrient balances to the authorities31.

Both authorities annually control the manure fluxes based on the plant operator’s report and

they use the instrument of spot test to verify/inspect the annual reports on site. The basis to

run this report is given by national law of energy32 and agricultural/environment33

respectively.

In addition, since Switzerland has established a Web application for simple and harmonized

management of manure flows (HODUFLU), every biogas plant is obliged to handle a

substrate log, where every single lot (manure per animal type and co-substrates) has to be

noted. This journal is part of the requirements written in the individualized handling permit.

So, both biogas farmers and authorities, operate with fresh manure.

In order to have the equivalent value of the manure on a dry basis as required in the

methodology, the amount of fresh manure has first to be multiplied by an average factor for

dilution in order to estimate the methane potential of the non-diluted manure, because fresh

manure is often diluted with water from the cleaning of the stables or the mechanical milker

30 Example for canton Luzern: http://www.uwe.lu.ch/index/themen/energie/erneuerbare_energien/biogas.htm and Bern:http://www.bve.be.ch/bve/de/index/direktion/organisation/awa.html31 See https://www.agroscope.admin.ch/agroscope/de/home/themen/umwelt-ressourcen/boden-gewaesser-naehrstoffe/projekte-zur-verbesserung-der-naehrstoffeffizienz/grud.html32 Energieverordnung (ENV): https://www.admin.ch/opc/de/classified-compilation/20162945/201904010000/730.01.pdf33 Direktzahlungsverordnung (DZV): http://www.admin.ch/opc/de/classified-compilation/20130216/201401010000/910.13.pdf

38


for example. This factor has been calculated by Ökostrom Schweiz from a database of 43

planned or operating agricultural biogas installations and can be addressed as

representational, because it includes most of the Swiss agricultural biogas plants34. Generally,

it can be clearly stated that biogas farmers always try to minimize water quota in the input

material, because water in digesters only requires and blocks space, doesn’t contribute to the

gas production and increase the transport of digestates.

The non-diluted manure has then to be multiplied with the average dry content of the

manure to have the equivalent, as shows the following formula:

Where :

Qmanure, j,LT,y Quantity of manure treated from livestock type LT and animal manure

management system j (t/y, dry basis)

Qfm,j,LT,y Quantity of fresh manure treated from livestock type LT and animal manure

management system j (t/y, fresh basis)

VSj,LT,y Average dry matter content from manure of livestock type LT and animal

manure management system j (t dry matter/ t fresh matter)

Average values for dry matter (VSj,LT,y), organic dry matter (SVSj,LT,y ) or specific manure

formation per animal have been taken from a list of substrates and their gas potential that is

specific for Switzerland and regularly updated according to the latest scientific findings by

“Biomasse Suisse” and “Ökostrom Schweiz”.

Methane Conversion Factor (MCF)

The MCF values for each manure type are taken from the IPCC documentation. To meet the

specific conditions in Switzerland for solid cattle manure, this one has been divided into

34 See „Bestimmung der Verdünnungsfaktoren aus KOP-CH“ from Ökostrom Schweiz

39


conventional cattle manure and cattle manure deep litter. Deep litter has a higher Methane

Conversion Factor (MCF) but the overall impact on the emission reductions remains low

because only 18,1% of solid cattle manure is allocated to deep litter35. The allocation is done

by a percentage that has been derived from a study about agricultural emissions in

Switzerland36. The MCF values for liquid manure are calculated under consideration of the

specific agricultural practice in Switzerland. The calculated MCF uses formula from the IPCC

guidelines (the Van’t Hoff-Arrhenius Equation) and actual Swiss climate data (see attached

Excel files under “MCF liquid slurry” and “Temp-Data”).

The sources for the values of B0LT, DCH4 and GWPCH4 can be found in the 2006 IPCC Guidelines

for National Greenhouse Gas Inventories, Vol 4, Chapter 1037 documentation (see Excel files

with the emission reduction calculation provided by the project proponent as annex to the

GHG Report under “ER Manure - AMS III D”).

According to the methodology, the correction factor to equal model uncertainties is set to

0,9438.

The application of the above formula leads to an average total of annual Baseline methane

emissions of released 3.846 t CO2e from stored manure (average value of the monitored data

of 2016 and 2017, see annexed Excel files under “ER Manure - AMS III D):

35 See Excel file „Aufteilung Stapel-Tiefstreumist Rindervieh“36 See Kupper et al.: Ammoniakemissionen in der Schweiz 1990-2010 und Prognose bis 2020,https://www.agrammon.ch/assets/Downloads/Bericht_Agrammon_20130530.pdf37 See https://www.ipcc-nggip.iges.or.jp/public/2006gl/pdf/4_Volume4/V4_10_Ch10_Livestock.pdf38 See https://unfccc.int/resource/docs/2003/sbsta/10a02.pdf, p. 25

40


No Project nameAverage Baseline emissions of manure

management per year [t CO2e/y]

1 Gansner Biogas 1522 BGA Bütschwil 3743 BGA Jordi 1334 BGA Luder 2315 Biogas Spitzhof 2526 Halbmil Biogas 3487 Hawisa 2778 Winzeler 5329 BGA Langackerhof 178

10 BGA Val Biogas 86211 BGA Martin 13612 BGA Josef Ott 7613 Davos Biogas 18814 Schürch Bütikofen 111

3.846TOTAL

Table 7 Average Baseline Emissions from manure storage per year in t CO2e

5.2 Calculation of Baseline Emissions from fossil fuel heating

The CO2 emissions due to the use of fossil fuels to generate heat are determined using

formula from the approved UNFCCC methodology AMS-I.C in its 21st version, “Thermal

energy production with or without electricity”. For ex-post calculation of the substitution of

fossil fuels, a possible change of the heating system must be considered. If the heating

consumer is likely to change to a system with renewable fuels, the claimable emission

reductions would equal zero. A change in the heating system would only be likely if the old

system has to be replaced.

Another requirement for the replacement of fossil fuels is that the heat consumer has

actually been heated with fossil fuels before. The initial fuels for the heating systems are

shown in the calculation tables.

The formula used for Baseline calculation is:

41


Where

BEthermal,CO2,y Baseline emissions from thermal energy displaced by the project

activity during the year y (t CO2e)

EGthermal,y Net quantity of thermal energy supplied by the project activity during

the year y (TJ)

ηBL,thermal Efficiency of the plant using fossil fuel that would have been used in the

absence of project activity (%)

EFFF,CO2 CO2 emission factor of the fossil fuel that would have been used in the

baseline scenario (t CO2 / TJ)

An efficiency factor has not been considered for reasons of conservativeness. Efficiency of

modern fossil fuel heating systems is usually above 95%39.

Thermal energy used is measured as monitoring parameter EGthermal,y and converted from

kWh to TJ by the factor 0.0000036.

In cases where no heat meter is installed, the replaced thermal energy will be determined by

the historical annual fossil fuel demand and the present fossil fuel demand for the same

purpose. The difference between historical and actual demand is the amount of fossil fuel

that has been saved. The amount of fuel is converted with its specific energy content into the

corresponding amount of thermal energy.

The application of the above formula leads to an average annual baseline CO2 emission of

released 391 t CO2 from fossil fuel heating (average value of the monitored data of 2016 and

2017, see annexed Excel files under “ER Fossil Fuels - AMS I C”):

39 See „Taschenbuch der Heizungs- und Klimatechnik" page 16 Table 10,

http://www.energieverbraucher.de/files/download/file/0/1/0/183.pdf

42


No Project nameAverage Baseline Emissions from

fossil fuel heating per year [t CO2/y]

1 Gansner Biogas 102 BGA Bütschwil -3 BGA Jordi 344 BGA Luder -5 Biogas Spitzhof -6 Halbmil Biogas 827 Hawisa 488 Winzeler 1349 BGA Langackerhof -10 BGA Val Biogas 211 BGA Martin 8212 BGA Josef Ott 113 Davos Biogas GmbH -14 Schürch Bütikofen -

391TOTAL

Table 8 Average Baseline Emissions from fossil fuel heating of Bundle II per year in t CO2

5.3 Project Emissions

The project emissions of both Methodologies (AMS III.AO and AMS I.C) are presented in this

chapter.

The AMS III.AO Methodology describes the following possible project emissions:

Where

PEy Project activity emissions in the year y (t CO2e)

PEtransp,y Emissions from incremental transportation in the year y (t CO2e)

PEpower,y Emissions from electricity or fossil fuel consumption in the year y (t CO 2e)

43


PEres waste,y In case residual wastes are subjected to anaerobic storage, or disposed in a

landfill : methane emissions from storage/disposal/treatment of waste (t

CO2e)

PEphy leakage,y Methane emissions from physical leakage of the anaerobic digester in year y (t

CO2e)

PEflaring,y Methane emissions due to incomplete flaring in year y (t CO2e)

In the proposed project activity, the project emissions mentioned above will be considered

and assessed below, except PEres waste,y that can not occur.

The AMS I.C methodology uses the following equation to calculate possible project emissions:

Where

PEy Project emissions from the project activity during the year y (t CO2)

PEFF,y Project emissions from fossil fuel consumption during the year y (t CO2)

PEEc,y Project emissions from electricity consumption during the year y (t CO2)

PEGeo,y Project emissions from a geothermal project activity in year y (t CO2)

PEref,y Project emissions from use of refrigerant in project activity in year y

(t CO2)

PEcultivation,y Project emissions from cultivation of biomasse in a dedicated plantation in

year y (t CO2e)

For the presented project activity, potential sources of project emissions can only come

from :

PEFF,y Project emissions from fossil fuel consumption during the year y (t CO2)

PEEc,y Project emissions from electricity consumption during the year y (t CO2)

44


These 2 sources of project emissions are already included in the project emissions for AMS

III.AO and will be discussed below (PEFF,y and PEEc,y = PEpower,y ). The methodologies are

applied to the same activity: the production of biogas from animal manure and combustion

for power and heat production in a CHP. Considering the project emissions from both

methodologies would lead to a double counting.

Hence, the relevant possible project emissions of the AMS III.AO and AMS I.C Methodologies

for those biogas projects are the following:

a) CO2 emissions due to incremental transportation distances (PEtransp,y)

b) CO2 emissions from use of fossil fuels or electricity for the operation of all the

installed facilities (PEpower,y)

c) CH4 emissions from physical leakage of biogas in the manure management systems,

which includes production, collection and transport of biogas to the point of

flaring/combustion or gainful use of the anaerobic digester (PEphy leakage,y)

d) CH4 emissions due to flare inefficiency (PEflaring,y)

In the following, the different project emissions and their relevance will be discussed:

a) Emissions from transport of biomass (PEtransp,y):

Transport of biomass to the biogas plant causes emissions from the combustion of fossil

fuels. Usually the emissions from transportation are below 1 % of total emission reductions

by the project and do not exceed the criterion for significance (1 % of total emission

reductions or 2,000 t CO2e). It must be considered that transportation of manure and

agricultural goods is part of agricultural activity and will take place even in absence of

project activity. The reduction of volume during anaerobic digestion (usually 15-20 %) will

also lead to a reduction of number of transports. It could be argued that emissions from

transporting manure are lower than in the reference case due to the partially use of pipes

between the plant and the involved neighbour farms. On the other side, we suppose that

emissions from non-agricultural transport remain the same than in the reference case,

45


because if earlier, co-substrates have been composted by farmers, now co-substrates will be

digested by other farmers. The overall transportation distance may so remain at the same

level and decreases with an augmented number of biogas plants which is likely to occur in

the present.

b) Emissions from use of fossil fuels or electricity (PEpower,y):

Project activity will not make use of fossil fuels for heating. The thermal energy for the

digestion process comes from the heat in the CHP, that is won by burning of the biogas. The

electrical energy used is taken from the grid and is, to some extent, produced by fossil fuels.

But the project will also produce CO2 neutral electric energy that will replace the fossil fuel

generated energy in the grid. To avoid possible double counting, the energy fed into the grid

is not taken into account for the calculation of emission reductions. It would be unjustified to

subtract the own consumption of energy as project emissions while ignoring the reduction

from the production of renewable energy. The own consumption usually is around 8% of the

energy produced.

c) Emissions from physical leakage of biogas (PEphy leakage,y):

In AMS III.AO, the emissions due to physical leakages from the digester and recovery system

are to be estimated with 0,05 m³ biogas leaked/m³ biogas produced. This value can be

addressed as too high considering experiences from practice in Switzerland, as described in

chapter 4 above. The system of the biogas plant starting at the input of manure is gastight.

The operator has an interest to keep the system gastight for security reasons, but also

because biogas is the fuel that runs the engine and creates the income. Severe discrepancies

between the biogas potential of the substrates and the produced electric energy would

become apparent to the operator.

d) Emissions from flaring (PEflaring,y):

Most of the projects in the Bundle II have a stationary or mobile gas flare available, that will

burn the biogas, if the CHP is not running. When looking at the CHP capacities and the

actually produced energy, it becomes clear that times of gas surplus do practically not occur.

46


In CHP downtimes (during maintenance), the gas storage within the membrane roof can

store the gas that is not burned. Gas flares claim to have a burning efficiency of at least 99 %,

which does equal the efficiency of the CHP. Considering this efficiency, the emissions will in

every case be below the threshold for significant emission reductions.

Possible other project emissions could come from the storage of manure before being fed

into the anaerobic digester: The manure from the own farm is directed into a mixing tank

and from there into the anaerobic digester. Internal manure will not be stored for longer

than 24 hours. Concerning the fraction of external manure, the storage duration again will be

supposed to be low, because every plant operator is dependent on a prompt treatment to

exploit the entire gas potential of manure as calculated in the primary economical pre-

setting.

To cover the few potential projects emissions described above and to make an emission

reduction certification possible for small-scale biogas plants, a conservative approach for this

bundle has been chosen: the project emissions are estimated to be overall 10% of total

emission reductions. This estimate is based on calculation for biogas projects in different

countries and under different standards. This approach shall make it possible for small-scale

biogas plants to take part in certification by reducing the efforts and costs of calculation and

documentation.

The project emissions for the project activity are set at 10% of the total emission reductions:

The average annual project emissions of Bundle II are:

47


No Project nameAverage Project Emissions per year

[t CO2e/y]1 Gansner Biogas 152 BGA Bütschwil 373 BGA Jordi 134 BGA Luder 235 Biogas Spitzhof 256 Halbmil Biogas 357 Hawisa 288 Winzeler 539 BGA Langackerhof 18


385TOTAL

Table 9 Average Project Emissions of Bundle II per year in t CO2e

5.4 Emission Reductions

The total GHG emission reduction caused by the project activity is determined ex-post by:

48


No Project nameAverage Total Emission Reductions

per year [tCO2e/y]1 Gansner Biogas 1462 BGA Bütschwil 3363 BGA Jordi 1534 BGA Luder 2085 Biogas Spitzhof 2266 Halbmil Biogas 3957 Hawisa 2978 Winzeler 6129 BGA Langackerhof 16010 BGA Val Biogas 77711 BGA Martin 20412 BGA Josef Ott 6913 Schürch Bütikofen 16914 Davos Biogas GmbH 100

3.852TOTAL

Table 10 Average Total Emission Reductions of Bundle II per year in t CO2e

6 I S O 1 4 - 0 6 4 P R I N C I P L E S

The application of the following ISO 14064 principles is fundamental to ensure that GHG

related information is a true and fair account.

6.1 Relevance

The criterion for relevance of a pla source, sink or reservoir (SSR) was adapted from JI

Guidelines. It is an emission (reduction) that counts for at least 1% of the calculated total

emission reduction of project activity or exceed an amount of 2,000 t CO2e emission

reduction per project site, depending on which value is lower40. Because of the small-scale

characteristic, the 2,000 t threshold is not applicable though. SSRs that do not meet this

criterion are not be considered. Only exception from use of this criterion is the consumption

of electricity, which is measured but not added as project emission. As explained above,

40 See https://ji.unfccc.int/Ref/Documents/Baseline_setting_and_monitoring.pdf, page 5

49


project activity has a positive balance regarding emission from electric energy production.

Also, only SSRs under the control of project participants are be considered.

6.2 Completeness

The formula of CDM small-scale Methodology AMS III.D was used to calculate emission

reductions. Calculations of project emissions have been simplified to better meet the efforts

that such small projects can take.

6.3 Consistency

Formulas are adapted from approved UNFCCC methodologies and IPCC values. Literature

values are mainly taken from a list that is maintained by Biomasse Schweiz and Ökostrom

Schweiz, which is a trustworthy source of local data for Switzerland.

6.4 Accuracy

Accuracy of measurement is supposed to be very high because the measuring instruments in

the CHP or weighing scales are state of the art in thousands of installations worldwide.

Formulas from approved methodologies have undergone several revisions and

improvements. The results are expected to be accurate.

6.5 Transparency

Excel files are provided to the verifying entity, which contains all formula and data used with

the corresponding sources.

The handwritten data like the operation manual (where the substrates inputs are archived in

absence of computer logging systems) can be viewed any time.

6.6 Conservativeness

Conservative assumptions have been made in all key questions, like the relevance of SSRs

(that have to be identified according to ISO 14064), calculation of project emissions and

50


choice of calculation factors, that affect the emission reductions such as the Methane

Conversion Factor (MCF) in AMS III.D, for example.

51

7 M O N I T O R I N G T H E D A TA I N F O R M A T I O N M A N A G E M E N T

S Y S T E M A N D D A TA C O N T R O L S

The emission reductions achieved by the project activity are determined ex-post as

follows :

Where :

ERy,ex-post Emission reductions achieved by the project activity based on

monitored values for year y (t CO2e)

BEy,ex-post Baseline emissions from CH4 destroyed by project activity

calculated using ex-post monitored values from Qfm,LT,y in

year y (t CO2e)

BEthermal,CO2,y,ex-post Baseline emissions from fossil fuel displaced by the project

activity calculated using ex-post monitored values from

EGthermal,y in year y (t CO2e)

PEy,ex-post Project emissions using the value of 10% of calculated baseline

emissions for year y (t CO2e)

The following plant-specific data are collected for the monitoring. They are used to

calculate the emission reduction ex-post or to cross-check the values that are

relevant for those calculations:

52


Data/ Parameter Qfm

Unit t

Description Quantity of fresh manure treated (non-diluted, fresh

basis)

Source Annual report to Ministry of Agriculture, Environment or

Swissgrid

Measurement procedure Internal or external weighing or measuring of manure

deliveries

Measurement frequency Continuously (at delivery)

Data archiving Analysis report, electronic or paper

Uncertainty Low (approx. <3%)

QA/QC procedures Annual report is the basis for financial support or

verification/control of the farmers and is supervised by

several different Swiss authorities

Comments Value is used to calculate the emission reductions.

Data/ Parameter EGthermal

Unit kWh

Description Net quantity of thermal energy supplied by the project

activity

Source Heat counter or fuel bills, or difference between

historical and actual annual fossil fuel demand

Measurement procedure Directly through annual production or as difference

between historical and actual annual fossil fuel demand

Measurement frequency Monthly

53




QA/QC procedures Heat counters are standard installations being highly

precise, additionally normally referred to delivery

accounting


Data/ Parameter EEP

Unit kWh

Description Electrical energy produced by the CHP engines

Source Power meter


between power meter at the beginning and at the end of

the monitoring year

Measurement frequency Continuously


Uncertainty Very low (approx. <0.5%)

QA/QC procedures Power meters are standard installations being highly

precise, additionally referred to delivery accounting

Comments Value is used to cross-check the biogas produced and

destroyed by the CHP engines.

Data/ Parameter MCFO

Unit t

Description Mass of each co-ferment fed into the digester

Source Scales recording at supplier

54


Measurement procedure Internal or external weighing or measuring of co-

substrate deliveries




QA/QC procedures High mass scales are very robust mechanical instruments

being resistant of deviation within the uncertainty level

Comments Value is used to determine the biogas potential for cross-

checking with actual energy production

Data/ Parameter F

Unit h

Description Runtime of the CHP engines

Source Runtime counter

Measurement procedure Directly from the CHP engines




QA/QC procedures Runtime hour recording is a standard measurement

method

Comments Value is used to control that the biogas produced is

destroyed in the CHP engines.

Following parameter, that are used to calculate the emission reductions, are

independent from the operation of the single biogas plants:

55


Data / Parameter B0

Unit m³ CH4/kg odm

Description Maximum methane producing potential of the volatile

solid generated for animal type LT

Source 2006 IPCC Guidelines for National Greenhouse Gas

Inventories

Determination During Verification

Comments -

Data / Parameter VS

Unit t dry matter/ t fresh matter

Description Average dry matter content from manure of livestock

type LT and animal manure management system j

Source „Substrate aus der Landwirtschaft" from Biomasse

Schweiz and Ökostrom Schweiz


Comments -

Data / Parameter SVS

Unit t/t, dry basis

Description Specific volatile solids content of animal manure from

livestock type LT and animal manure management

system j in year y




56


Comments -

Data / Parameter MCF

Unit %

Description Methane Conversion Factor


Inventories


Comments -

Data / Parameter GWPCH4

Unit Factor

Description Global Warming Potential

Source IPCC Fifth Assessment Report 2014


Comments -

Data / Parameter DCH4

Unit t/Nm³

Description CH4 Density (0,00067 t/m³ at room temperature (20 °C)

and 1 atm pressure)

Source IPCC Good Practice Guidance and Uncertainty

management in National Greenhouse Gas Inventories


Comments -

57


Data / Parameter Ufb

Unit Factor

Description Model correction factor to account for model

uncertainties

Source Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological advice,

FCCC/SBSTA/2003/10/Add.2, page 25


Comments -

Data / Parameter EFCO2

Unit t CO2 / TJ

Description CO2 emission factor of the fossil fuel that would have

been used in the baseline scenario

Source “CO2-Abgabebefreiung ohne Emissionshandel”, Federal

Office for the Environment


Comments -

Data / Parameter 1,365

Unit Factor

Description Average dilution factor for agricultural biogas plants in

Switzerland (1 part manure: 0.365 parts water)

Source “Bestimmung der Verdünnungsfaktoren aus

landwirtschaftlichen Biogasanlagen“, Ökostrom Schweiz


Comments -

58


The following table describes the data that will be collected for the monitoring.

Those data are used to calculate the emission reductions ex-post according to this

GHG Report as well as to check the plausibility of the respective data are presented:

59

Unit Recorded Data Sources / Origin Monitoringfrequency

Purpose ofcollected data

Uncertainty QA/QC

Qfm

Volume of freshmanure fed intodigester

tAnalysis report(electronic orpaper)

Annual report toMinistry ofAgriculture,Environment orSwissgrid

ContinouslyUsed to calculatethe emissionreductions

Low(approx.<3%)

Annual report is the basisfor financial support orverification/control of thefarmers and is supervised byseveral different Swissauthorities

EGthermal

Thermal energyproduced forexternalutilisation

kWhor

MWh

Analysis report(electronic orpaper)

Heat counter orfuel bills Continuously

Used to calculatethe emissionreductions

Low(approx.<1%)

Heat counters are standardinstallations being highlyprecise, additionallynormally referred to deliveryaccounting

EEPElectrical energyproduced kWh

Analysis report(electronic orpaper)

Power meter Continuously

Used to cross-checkthe biogas producedand destroyed bythe CHP engines.

Very low(approx.<0.5%)

Power meters are standardinstallations being highlyprecise, additionally referredto delivery accounting

MCFOiMass of each co-ferment i fed intodigester

tAnalysis report(electronic orpaper)

Scales recording atsupplier When applicable

Used to determinethe biogas potentialfor cross-checkingwith actual energyproduction

Low(approx.<3%)

High mass scales are veryrobust mechanicalinstruments being resistantof deviation within theuncertainty level

FT Fraction of time hAnalysis report(electronic orpaper)

Runtime counter Continuously

Used to control thatthe biogas producedis destroyed in theCHP engines.

Low(approx.<1%)

Runtime hour recording is astandard measurementmethod.

Parameter

Table 11 Monitoring parameters

60

8 M O N I T O R I N G R E P O R T F O R T H E Y E A R S 2 0 1 8 A N D 2 0 1 9

8.1 Project status

The present Report covers 2 years of GHG emission reductions of the project activity

from 01.01.2018 to 31.12.2018 and from 01.01.2019 to 31.12.2019.

All the biogas plants of this Bundle II were already taken in operation during the

years 2018 and 2019:

No Project name Start of construction Start of operation Project duration1 Gansner Biogas 01.01.2002 18.06.2012* 2012-20322 BGA Bütschwil 20.06.2013 23.12.2013 2013-20333 BGA Jordi 01.01.2006 01.10.2026 2006-20264 BGA Luder 16.10.2009 20.03.2010 2010-20305 Biogas Spitzhof 25.04.2013 24.01.2014 2014-20346 Halbmil Biogas 01.01.2006 12.06.2006 2006-20267 Hawisa 01.01.2006 25.08.2006 2006-20268 Winzeler 30.06.2009 20.02.2010 2010-20309 BGA Langackerhof 01.01.2016 01.10.2016 2016-203610 BGA Val Biogas 01.01.2005 01.01.2006 2006-202611 BGA Martin 01.01.1999 15.09.2007* 2007-202712 BGA Josef Ott 01.01.2009 01.10.2009 2009-202913 Davos Biogas 01.01.2004 24.11.2004 2004-202414 Schürch Bütikofen 20.08.2016 22.10.2016 2016-2036

* Valid date of start-up with introduction of the new CHP

Table 12 Project duration and crediting period

In 2018 and 2019, the plants used for energy production very different types of

substrates, mainly a mixture of a high share of manure and a variety of organic

wastes. This is a typical composition for biogas plants in Switzerland which is

caused by the conditions for governmental support. The heat from the CHP was in

some cases gainfully used for heating of stalls, houses, etc. and replaced existing

fossil fuel heating systems.

61


The statements made in the initial GHG Monitoring Plan fully apply in those

Monitoring periods.

8.2 Data and parameters

In chapter 8.2.1., the data and parameters available at validation are presented in

the corresponding tables. In chapter 8.2.2., the data and parameters monitored in

2018 and 2019 are presented in the corresponding tables. Where the presentation

of all the values of monitored data is not possible and to keep the Monitoring Report

clear, only the values from Project 1 (Gansner Biogas) for liquid cattle manure for

the year 2018 are given below for each parameter as a calculation example. All the

other monitored values are stated in the annexed spreadsheet for the years 2018

and 2019 (see under “ER Manure - AMS III D” and “ER Fossil Fuels - AMS I C”).

8 . 2 . 1 D a t a a n d p a r a m e t e r s a v a i l a b l e a t v a l i d a t i o n

Data / Parameter B0

Unit m³ CH4/kg odm

Description Maximum methane producing potential of the volatile

solid generated for animal type LT


Inventories

Value applied 0,24


Comments -

62


Data / Parameter VS

Unit t dry matter/ t fresh matter

Description Average dry matter content from manure of livestock

type LT and animal manure management system j



Value applied 0,086


Comments -

Data / Parameter SVS

Unit t/t, dry basis

Description Specific volatile solids content of animal manure from

livestock type LT and animal manure management

system j in year y



Value applied 0,785


Comments -

Data / Parameter GWPCH4

Unit Factor

63


Description Global Warming Potential

Source IPCC Fifth Assessment Report 2014

Value applied 28


Comments -

Data / Parameter DCH4

Unit t/Nm³

Description CH4 Density (0,00067 t/m³ at room temperature (20 °C)

and 1 atm pressure)

Source IPCC Good Practice Guidance and Uncertainty

management in National Greenhouse Gas Inventories

Value applied 0,00067


Comments -

Data / Parameter Ufb

Unit Factor

Description Model correction factor to account for model

uncertainties

Source Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological advice,

FCCC/SBSTA/2003/10/Add.2, page 25

Value applied 0,94


64


Comments -

Data / Parameter EFCO2

Unit t CO2 / TJ

Description CO2 emission factor of the fossil fuel that would have

been used in the baseline scenario

Source “CO2-Abgabebefreiung ohne Emissionshandel”, Federal

Office for the Environment

Value applied 73,7


Comments -

Data / Parameter 1,365

Unit Factor

Description Average dilution factor for agricultural biogas plants in

Switzerland (1 part manure: 0.365 parts water)

Source “Bestimmung der Verdünnungsfaktoren aus

landwirtschaftlichen Biogasanlagen“, Ökostrom Schweiz

Value applied 1,365


Comments -

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8 . 2 . 2 D a t a a n d p a r a m e t e r s m o n i t o r e d

Data/ Parameter Qfm

Unit t

Description Quantity of fresh manure treated (non-diluted, fresh

basis)

Source Annual report to Ministry of Agriculture, Environment or

Swissgrid

Value monitored

…….

Description Amount [t]

Liquid cattle manure 1492

Solid cattle manure 50

Solid poultry manure 631

Measurement procedure Internal or external weighing or measuring of manure

deliveries

Measurement frequency Continuously (at delivery)



QA/QC procedures Annual report is the basis for financial support or

verification/control of the farmers and is supervised by

several different Swiss authorities


66


Data/ Parameter EGthermal

Unit kWh

Description Net quantity of thermal energy supplied by the project

activity

Source Heat counter or fuel bills, or difference between

historical and actual annual fossil fuel demand

Value monitored 49.915


between historical and actual annual fossil fuel demand

Measurement frequency Monthly



QA/QC procedures Heat counters are standard installations being highly

precise, additionally normally referred to delivery

accounting


Data/ Parameter EEP

Unit kWh

Description Electrical energy produced by the CHP engines

Source Power meter

Value monitored 705.406

67



between power meter at the beginning and at the end of

the monitoring year



Uncertainty Very low (approx. <0.5%)

QA/QC procedures Power meters are standard installations being highly

precise, additionally referred to delivery accounting

Comments Value is used to cross-check the biogas produced and

destroyed by the CHP engines.

Data/ Parameter MCFO

Unit t

Description Mass of each co-ferment fed into the digester

Source Scales recording at supplier

Value monitored

……..

Description Amount [t]

Fruit wastes 632

Vegetable wastes 1342

Fruit pomace 177

Beet by-products 48

Fruit water, sugared water 45

Wheat dust 10

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Measurement procedure Internal or external weighing or measuring of co-

substrate deliveries




QA/QC procedures High mass scales are very robust mechanical instruments

being resistant of deviation within the uncertainty level

Comments Value is used to determine the biogas potential for cross-

checking with actual energy production

Data/ Parameter F

Unit h

Description Runtime of the CHP engines

Source Runtime counter

Value monitored 7535

Measurement procedure Directly from the CHP engines




QA/QC procedures Runtime hour recording is a standard measurement

method

Comments Value is used to control that the biogas produced is

destroyed in the CHP engines.

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Data / Parameter MCF

Unit %

Description Methane Conversion Factor


Inventories

Value monitored 12.9 (Overall average)

Measurement procedure Calculated by means of the Van’t Hoff_Arrhenius

Equation from the IPCC Guidelines and actual Swiss

climate data

Measurement frequency N/A

Data archiving N/A

Uncertainty N/A

QA/QC procedures N/A


8.3 Emission reductions

In accordance with the Monitoring Plan of the present GHG Report, the total GHG

emission reductions caused by the project activity are determined ex-post by:

Where:

ERy,ex-post Emission reductions achieved by the project activity based on

monitored values for year y (t CO2e)

70


BEy,ex-post Baseline emissions from CH4 destroyed by project activity

calculated using ex-post monitored values from Qfm,LT,y in year

y (t CO2e)

BEthermal,CO2,y,ex-post Baseline emissions from fossil fuel displaced by the project

activity calculated using ex-post monitored values from

EGthermal,y in year y (t CO2e)

PEy,ex-post Project emissions using the value of 10% of calculated

emission reductions in year y (t CO2e)

It means that the total GHG emission reductions caused by the project activity

(ERy,ex-post) are the sum of the Baseline emissions from CH4 then destroyed by

project activity (BEy,ex-post) and of the Baseline emissions from fossil fuel displaced

by the project activity (BEthermal,CO2,y,ex-post), from which amount we deduct the

project emissions (PEy,ex-post).

In the following 3 chapters, the calculation steps for BEy,ex-post , BEthermal,CO2,y,ex-post as

well as for PEy,ex-post are described in details.

8 . 3 . 1 E m i s s i o n r e d u c t i o n s f r o m d e s t r u c t i o n o f m e t h a n e

According to the CDM small-scale Methodology AMS III.D, the methane destroyed by

the project activity is calculated on the base of manure inputs:

with

71


The application of the above formulas will be detailed, in a first step, using the

values for liquid cattle manure of Project 1 in 2018, as a calculation example, in

order to keep the Report clear (see also the excel file for 2018 under “ER Manure -

AMS III D”). The total emission reduction from methane recovery due to the project

activity of Bundle II for the Monitoring year 2018 and 2019 are then presented in

the following tables.

According to the formulas, the emission reductions from liquid cattle manure for the

project Gansner Biogas in 2018 are calculated as follows:

BELM,2018 = 28 * 0,00067 * 0,94 * (MCFGansner, lcm * 0,24 m³ CH4/kg odm * 1.000

kg/t * QGansner, odm * 0,785 odm/dm)

= 141 t CO2e

With

Qmanure,LM,2018 = QGansner, fm * 0,086 dm/fm

Note that BEy is the total amount of Baseline Emissions for the entire animal manure

entering the biogas plant in 2018 since BELM, here, is only the amount of Baseline

Emissions for the liquid cattle manure in 2018.

72


Applying the above formulas for all the manure types in the monitoring years 2018

and 2019, the project activity leads to a total of annual emission reductions from

methane destroyed by the biogas plants of 4.539 t CO2e in 2018 and 4.935 t CO2e in

2019:

No Project nameBaseline Emissions from manure

management in 2018 [tCO2e]1 Gansner Biogas 1602 BGA Bütschwil 6333 BGA Jordi 1244 BGA Luder 1655 Biogas Spitzhof 2436 Halbmil Biogas 3327 Hawisa 1538 Winzeler 5569 BGA Langackerhof 311


4.539TOTAL

Table 13 Emission Reductions from CH4 destroyed by the project activity in 2018

73


No Project nameBaseline Emissions from manure

management in 2019 [tCO2e]1 Gansner Biogas 1532 BGA Bütschwil 7933 BGA Jordi 1194 BGA Luder 1605 Biogas Spitzhof 2426 Halbmil Biogas 3237 Hawisa 2078 Winzeler 5849 BGA Langackerhof 539


4.935TOTAL

Table 14 : Emission Reductions from CH4 destroyed by the project activity in 2019

The detailed calculation of the emission reduction from manure management in

2018 and 2019 can be found in the attached excel files of this Report under “ER

Manure - AMS III D.

8 . 3 . 2 E m i s s i o n r e d u c t i o n f r o m s u b s t i t u t i o n o f f o s s i l f u e l h e a t i n g

The carbon dioxide emissions avoided due to the project activity are calculated

according to the formula from the CDM Methodology AMS I.C:

It means that the amount of thermal energy measured has to be multiplied with the

CO2 emission factor of heating oil that has been used in the baseline scenario in

order to calculate the amount of emission reductions through the substitution of

74


fossil fuels. Note that an efficiency factor has not been considered for reasons of

conservativeness.

As in the last chapter, the application of the above formula is first presented in detail

based on the values for the fuel consumption of Project 1 in 2018. The total emission

reduction from fuel substitution due to the project activity of Bundle II for the

Monitoring year 2018 and 2019 are then represented in the following tables.

So, according to the formula, the emission reductions from fuel switch for the

project Gansner Biogas in 2018 are calculated as follows (see also the excel file for

2018 under “ER Fossil Fuels - AMS I C”):

BEthermal,CO2,y = (49.915 kWh * 0,0000036 ) * 73,7 t CO2/TJ

= 13 t CO2e

The project activity leads to a total of CO2 emission reductions through the

substitution of fossil fuels from 355 t CO2 in 2018 and 358 t CO2 in 2019:

75


No Project nameBaseline Emissions of fossil fuel

heating in 2018 [tCO2e]1 Gansner Biogas 132 BGA Bütschwil -3 BGA Jordi 174 BGA Luder -5 Biogas Spitzhof -6 Halbmil Biogas 767 Hawisa 338 Winzeler 1519 BGA Langackerhof -10 BGA Val Biogas 1411 BGA Martin 4212 BGA Josef Ott 913 Davos Biogas GmbH -14 Schürch Bütikofen -

355TOTAL

Table 15 : Emission Reductions from fossil fuel displaced in 2018

No Project nameBaseline Emissions of fossil fuel

heating in 2019 [tCO2e]1 Gansner Biogas 162 BGA Bütschwil -3 BGA Jordi 204 BGA Luder -5 Biogas Spitzhof -6 Halbmil Biogas 817 Hawisa 358 Winzeler 1339 BGA Langackerhof -10 BGA Val Biogas 1611 BGA Martin 4812 BGA Josef Ott 913 Davos Biogas GmbH -14 Schürch Bütikofen -

358TOTAL

Table 16 : Emission Reductions from fossil fuel displaced in 2019

76


The detailed calculation of the emission reduction from fossil fuel displaced in 2018

and 2019 can be found in the attached excel files of this Report under “ER Fossil

Fuels - AMS I C”.

8 . 3 . 3 P r o j e c t e m i s s i o n s

According to this GHG Report of Bundle II, the project emissions have been set to

10% of the total amount of emission reductions:

Using the formula above, the project emissions from project activity are 454 t CO2e

for the monitoring years 2018 and 492 t CO2e for the year 2019:

No Project name Project Emissions in 2018 [tCO2e]1 Gansner Biogas 162 BGA Bütschwil 633 BGA Jordi 124 BGA Luder 175 Biogas Spitzhof 246 Halbmil Biogas 337 Hawisa 158 Winzeler 569 BGA Langackerhof 31


454TOTAL

Table 17 : Project emissions from project activity in 2018

77


No Project name Project Emissions in 2019 [tCO2e]1 Gansner Biogas 152 BGA Bütschwil 793 BGA Jordi 124 BGA Luder 165 Biogas Spitzhof 246 Halbmil Biogas 327 Hawisa 218 Winzeler 589 BGA Langackerhof 54


492TOTAL

Table 18 : Project emissions from project activity in 2019

8 . 3 . 4 T o t a l e m i s s i o n r e d u c t i o n s

Hence, the total GHG emission reductions caused by the project activity are the sum

of the emission reductions from produced CH4 destroyed in the CHP engines and the

CO2 emissions avoided by displacing fossil fuels, from which the project emissions

are deducted:

The total GHG emission reductions caused by the project activity are 4.440 t CO2e in

2018 and 4.801 t CO2e 2019 :

78


No Project name Emission Reductions in 2018 [tCO2e]

1 Gansner Biogas 1572 BGA Bütschwil 5703 BGA Jordi 1294 BGA Luder 1485 Biogas Spitzhof 2196 Halbmil Biogas 3757 Hawisa 1718 Winzeler 6519 BGA Langackerhof 28010 BGA Val Biogas 57211 BGA Martin 78612 BGA Josef Ott 7713 Davos Biogas GmbH 20614 Schürch Bütikofen 99

4.440TOTAL

Table 19 : Total Emission reductions from project activtiy in 2018

No Project name Emission Reductions in 2019 [tCO2e]

1 Gansner Biogas 1542 BGA Bütschwil 7143 BGA Jordi 1274 BGA Luder 1445 Biogas Spitzhof 2186 Halbmil Biogas 3727 Hawisa 2218 Winzeler 6599 BGA Langackerhof 48510 BGA Val Biogas 54911 BGA Martin 78612 BGA Josef Ott 7513 Davos Biogas GmbH 20214 Schürch Bütikofen 95

4.801TOTAL

Table 20 : Total Emission reductions from project activity in 2019

79


9 R E P O R T I N G A N D V E R I F I C A T I O N D E TA I L S

The GHG Report has been prepared in accordance with ISO 14064-- and GHG

CleanProjectsTM requirements.

The report has been third party verified by TÜV Rheinland Energy GmbH (detail

below) who have submitted a verification report that conforms to ISO 14064-3

standards, included a signed Verification Statement, provides details in how conflict

of interest issues are managed or mitigated, demonstrates that the verification body

is competent to perform the verification of the GHG project that includes the GHG

Report, GHG Assertion(s), and the calculations of the GHG emission reductions or

removal enhancements, includes in its scope the fact that the project conforms to

the requirements of ISO 14064-2, and verifies the project to a reasonable level of

assurance, including all GHG Assertion(s) and calculations of GHG emission

reductions or removal enhancements.

Report Verifier

TÜV Rheinland Energy GmbH

Am Grauen Stein, 51105 Cologne, Germany

Lead verifier: Norbert Heidelmann

Work carried out by: Denitsa Gaydarova-Itrib ([email protected])

Phone: +49 221 806 57 56