Guide
How much does a farm biogas plant cost?
It's the first question every farmer asks, so here's a straight answer. Below are our indicative prices by size, what they include, and what pushes the cost up or down.
Indicative prices
| Size | Suits | Indicative price |
|---|---|---|
| Micro, up to 20 kW | Smaller livestock farms running mainly on their own manure | from €230,000 |
| Micro, 40 to 50 kW | Larger herds with a steady supply of manure or slurry | from €325,000 |
| Small, 70 to 100 kW | Large herds or farms with extra feedstock | from €510,000 |
Prices are indicative and are confirmed for each farm after an assessment. All prices are net of VAT.
What's included
Included
- Farm assessment and system design
- The digester, gas storage and heat and power unit
- Installation and commissioning
- Help with the notification or permit paperwork
May cost extra
- Upgrading your grid connection
- Unusual groundwork or long pipe runs
- Extra storage for digestate
- Optional add-ons such as separators
What decides the price
- Size. More power means a bigger digester, a bigger engine and more storage, so the anaerobic digester cost rises with it.
- Your feedstock. Liquid slurry and solid manure need different tanks, pumps and handling.
- How you use the energy. Heat only, electricity, or both.
- Your site. Ground conditions, foundations and the distance to buildings and connections.
- Your grid connection. Whether it already has spare capacity, or needs upgrading.
- Paperwork. Smaller plants usually have a simpler, cheaper approval process.
How much energy does a farm biogas plant produce?
A plant's power rating tells you how much it produces when it's running. Farm plants are designed to run almost all year round, so a 50 kW plant running most of the year produces in the region of 400,000 kWh of electricity a year, plus usable heat.
A real example: a 33 kW slurry-only digester on a dairy farm in the UK produces around 20,000 kWh of electricity a month and uses about 3,000 kWh of that to run itself.
Your farm's output depends on how much manure you have and what type, which is exactly what the assessment works out.
How big does my farm need to be?
Polish industry figures suggest a 40 to 50 kW plant works best with about 250 to 300 dairy cows, or about 3,000 to 5,000 fattening pigs. Smaller micro plants can suit smaller herds, at a small biogas plant price from €230,000. Learn more about micro plants
Grants and subsidies
Grants can cover a significant part of the cost. In Poland, for example, programmes for farm biogas have offered support of up to 65% of eligible costs for micro plants. Programmes and conditions change, so we help you check what's available to you at the time. Read about funding
Smaller plants, simpler paperwork
Size also affects the paperwork. In Poland, farm biogas plants up to 50 kW need only a notification to the county office instead of a full building permit, while larger plants need a building permit and, above 0.5 MW, an environmental decision. Rules differ by country, and we map them out with you.
