Energy Policy 39 (2011) 6073–6081

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Energy Policy
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/enpol

A review of the biogas industry in China

Xinyuan Jiang a,n, Sven G. Sommer b, Knud V. Christensen b
a
School of Materials Science and Engineering, Central South University of Forestry and Technology, Changsha, Hunan province 410004, PR China
b
Institute of Chemical Engineering, Biotechnology and Environmental Technology, Faculty of Engineering, University of Southern Denmark, Niels Bohrs Alle 1,
DK-5230 Odense M, Denmark

a r t i c l e i n f o abstract

Article history: This article presents an overview of the development and future perspectives of the Chinese biogas
Received 9 March 2011 industry. The development of the industry has the potential to improve the rural environment and
Accepted 5 July 2011 produce significant amounts of sustainable energy for China. Barriers to the development are the
Available online 28 July 2011
relatively weak environmental policies, imperfect financial policies and lack of long-term follow-up
Keywords: services. The rapid economic development of China has also seen a development in the scales of biogas
China plants constructed. Although the technology has been improved, this review has identified problems in
Sustainable development the construction and operation of Chinese biogas plants, particularly in the efficiency of household
Biogas systems. All levels of China’s government acknowledge this and recent biogas projects have more focus
on quality and less on the quantity. The intention is to gradually introduce stricter environmental
policies, to provide better service systems, improve the financial policies that support the construction
and follow-up service of biogas projects, promote the use of standardized engineering equipment and
materials and standards for plant construction and production. This will promote the development of
biogas projects at various scales further, and reduce the dependency on fossil fuels and emissions of
greenhouse gases.
& 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction The consumption of fossil fuels produces serious pollution and

China is the world’s largest developing country with a population
numbering over 1.3 billion people. Its rapid economic growth has led
to rapidly increasing energy consumption. Since 2002 China has been
the world’s second largest energy user, only exceeded by the United
States (National Bureau of Statistics of China, 2010). In 2009 crude oil
consumption reached 388 million t, of which over 50% was imported
and China’s primary energy consumption reached more than 3
billion t of standard coal equivalent (tce), with non-fossil fuels,
including renewable accounting for only 9.9% (National Bureau of
Statistics of China, 2010). A recent report has forecast China to
become the world’s largest energy consumer soon (IEA Energy
Statistics, 2010). If China’s energy consumption continues to increase
at an average annual growth rate of 8.9%, then China’s total energy
consumption will reach nearly 8 billion tce in 2020 and account for
more than half of the world’s total energy consumption. Even if China
were able to reduce its energy consumption by 20% per unit GDP
every five years, as is government policy, China’s energy consumption
would still account for more than 30% of the world’s energy
consumption after 2020 (Zhou, 2010).
n
Corresponding author. Tel.: þ86 731 85623309; fax: þ 86 731 85623303.
E-mail address: jxycsfu@126.com (X. Jiang).
global warming. Reducing the dependency on fossil fuels through the
development of sustainable energy sources is therefore a prerequisite
for the sustainable economic development of China. The sustainable
technologies include wind power, solar energy and bioenergy. This
paper looks more closely at the biogas aspect of bioenergy.
There are large biomass resources in China, not least crop
straw, forest residue, livestock and poultry manure and various
kinds of municipal and industrial organic wastes and wastewater
(Ma et al., 2010a). In 2007 China produced about 600 million t of
crop straw, of which rice straw, corn stalks and wheat straw
accounted for 79.5% (Zhang et al., 2009; Table 1). Historically,
rural households have used straw as their prime source of energy,
animal feed and fertilizer (Hu, 2008). However, the structure of
rural energy consumption in China is gradually changing, and
commercial energy companies increasingly supply the energy in
rural areas (Pachauri and Jiang, 2008). The utilization of crop
straw as fuel has therefore decreased significantly, to the extent
that the straw is burned in the field after harvest and the heat is
not utilized by rural households. This is not only a waste of the
biomass resource, it also leads to net emissions of CO2 and other
hazardous gases and particles that pollute the air and cause global
warming (Zhang et al., 2009).
The livestock production sector in China is at all scales moving
towards larger and more specialized production units so manure

0301-4215/$ - see front matter & 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.enpol.2011.07.007
6074 X. Jiang et al. / Energy Policy 39 (2011) 6073–6081

Table 1 bioenergy technology in China (Wu et al., 2009). In this paper we

Main crop straw resources in China in 2007 (Zhang et al., 2009). review the status of household biogas production and the devel-
opment of medium and large-scale biogas plants. We discuss how
Type Crop yield Straw:Grain Straw yield
(  106 t) ratio (  106 t) this may be affected by urbanization and the development of
larger and specialized agricultural production units and support-
Grain ing policies.
Rice 186.0 1.0 186.0
Wheat 109.3 1.0 109.3
Corn 152.3 2.0 304.6
Legume 17.2 1.5 25.8
2. Urban and rural development
Tuber 28.1 1.0 28.1
Others 8.7 1.5 13.0 2.1. Urbanization and regional differences
Oil plant
Peanut 13.0 2.0 26.1 China is the largest and fastest developing country in the
Rapeseed 10.6 2.0 21.1 world. It has also become the world number one manufacturing
Sesame 0.6 2.0 1.1 hub with many large companies outsourcing their production
Others 1.5 2.0 3.1
to China.
Bast fibre plant 0.7 2 1.5 The economic development and industrialization hasten the
Cotton 7.6 3 22.9 urbanization of China and this process has increased rapidly since
Sugar
the economic reform and opening of the country in 1980. As an
Sugar cane 113.0 0.1 11.3 average for the different regions, the percentage of the population
Sweet beet 8.9 0.1 0.9 living in urban areas in China was 19.4% in 1980 and 45.7% in
Total 657.5 754.7 2008 (Fig. 1; Li and Xu, 2008). According to a forecast from the
United Nations, in 2010 an average 47.8% of the population will
be living in urban areas. Urbanization is projected to be 68.7% in
2030 and 85.7% in 2050 (Fang, 2009). An important problem
related to urbanization is that there are obvious differences in the
Table 2
Livestock and poultry manure resources in China in 2007 (Zhang et al., 2009). urbanization between West and East China, i.e. the average
proportion of the population living in the eastern cities in 2006
Animal Breeding Manure Breeding Excretion was 54.6%, in central cities 40.4% and western cities 35.7%. The
Species quantity discharge cycle (day) (  106 t) difference is due to large differences in economic development.
(  106) rates
Especially coastal areas with a developed economy have more
Cattle 139.4 8.2 t/a 365 1143.4 concentrated urban populations (Long et al., 2009).
Pig (sale) 680.5 5.3 kg/d 300 1052.0
Pig (stock) 494.4 5.3 kg/d 365 956.4
2.2. Urban waste problems
Chicken 7318.5 0.10 kg/d 55 402.5
Sheep 369.0 0.87 t/a 365 321.0
House 7.2 5.9 t/a 365 42.4 The industrialization and urbanization create pressure on the
Donkey/Mule 730.6/345.1 5.0 t/a 365 53.8 environment of cities. In China the environmental problems are
Total 3971.6 extra large because management and treatment of waste, sewage
and emissions to the atmosphere do not keep pace with changes
driven by economic growth and urbanization. Pollution from
quantities increase, and in 2007 the amount of livestock and coal-burning for household energy is no longer a big problem in
poultry manure produced reached about 3.9 billion t (Table 2). larger cities where natural gas and liquefied gas have substituted
Manure management systems, including storage and processing, coal in most households. In these cities households produce large
are often inadequate, and most farms do not take appropriate amounts of vegetable waste and this waste is not efficiently
measures to prevent pollution. Inappropriate management of collected. The amount of waste is larger than in industrialized
livestock and poultry manure is, therefore, a serious threat to countries because preprocessed vegetables with less wastage are
soil, water, air and livestock and poultry (Zheng et al., 2005). not widely used in larger cities in China. For example, in Beijing,
Generation of biogas from the anaerobic digestion of biomass households at present produce 18,400 t of waste every day, 60% of
is a technology that can produce sustainable energy and also
reduce the environmental risks associated with manure and 90
waste management. Biogas is produced by bacterial conversion
Proportion of the population livin

80 Development
of organic matter under anaerobic conditions and is a mixture of
70 1949-2008
carbon dioxide (CO2) and the flammable gas methane (CH4). It is
in urban areas [%]

UN future
considered a kind of efficient and renewable energy after cleaning 60
prediction
sulphur through physical, chemical and biological methods such 50
as absorption, adsorption and bioreactor (Lastella et al., 2002;
40
Syed et al., 2006), which can be used to cook, heat, light and
generate power and can thus reduce the dependency on fossil 30
fuels and curtail greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The slurry and 20
residues from the biogas process can be used as an organic
10
fertilizer to replace the use of chemical fertilizer on the farm
(Hu, 2008; Gao et al., 2006; Zhou and Lin, 2004; Liu et al., 2008; 0
1940 1960 1980 2000 2020 2040 2060
Chen, 1997; Wang et al., 2007b). Anaerobic digestion processes
produce a higher biogas yield when run on a mixture of animal Year
manure and vegetable/crop waste rather than animal manure Fig. 1. Proportion of the population living in urban areas in PR China (Li and Xu,
alone, and biogas production is considered the most suitable 2008; Fang, 2009).
 X. Jiang et al. / Energy Policy 39 (2011) 6073–6081 6075

which is vegetable-based food waste. As poor people’s environ-

mental awareness, low waste management level of City health
authority and small investment from government, most of the
organic waste was not classified and was deposited in landfill,
which occupies large tracts of land, and as pollution control
measures for these are absent or inadequate, this leads to
pollution through leaching, runoff and greenhouse gas emissions
(Dong and Zhang, 2009). The deposition of organic waste is also a
huge waste of biomass resources that could instead be recycled
and used for bioenergy production. At present, although many
local governments have been aware of the value of organic waste
deposited in landfill as biogas, for the huge investment, only in
some big cities, there are some projects in use for the landfill
biogas recovery and utilization.
In recent years, waste incineration plants have been built to
generate power in some large cities such as Beijing, Shanghai,
Shenzhen and Guangzhou. However, the building of waste incin-
eration plants is usually opposed by local residents as they worry
about the gas emissions from wet unsorted waste containing
pollutants such as dioxins and object to the odour from garbage Fig. 2. Population percentage at different educational levels in PR China (National
(Mao et al., 2010). According to China’s 2009 city statistics Bureau of Statistics of China, 2008).
(Disposal Committee of Urban Domestic Refuse of CAEPI, 2010),
for 655 of China’s cities there were 407 landfill sites for municipal
solid waste by the end of 2008, which received 81.7% of the total lucrative jobs in cities. As a consequence of the young people
waste generated, there were 74 waste incineration plants receiv- leaving farms, it is expected that land will become available in the
ing 15.2% of the waste, and 23 composting plants receiving 1.7%. future, and that the number of medium and large-scale farms will
So there is a large amount of organic waste that could be used for increase. These farms will focus on production of cereals, vege-
anaerobic fermentation to produce biogas and organic fertilizer. tables and breeding of livestock and poultry and are expected to
develop rapidly in rural areas (Liu, 2009). Ownership of these
2.3. Scales of agricultural development farms may be both by commercial enterprises and individuals.

In the early 1980s, China’s government initiated an economic
reform, which changed agriculture from collective land owner-
ship to individual household production systems. Every house-
hold unit now owns a certain area of land and some livestock. In
consequence, the efficiency of production on the farms has grown,
agricultural productivity has increased, and the rural economy
strengthened.
After China joined the WTO and opened to the world, the
individual small-scale household production system in China was
influenced greatly by the globalizing economy and agricultural
industrialization of large-scale of family farm system abroad, and
the price of agricultural products in China was suppressed by that
of international agricultural products, so the income of small-
scale farmers cannot follow the increasing national economy, and
cannot support their family if only depending on the agricultural
producing. Some farmers, therefore, have had to move to cities to
find jobs, i.e. migration workers. Other farmers work in nearby
cities during the less labour-intensive seasons and work on the
farm only during the harvest season. Another change is that most
of the former smallholder breeding of livestock and poultry has
almost disappeared, which has led to a significant reduction in
organic fertilizer production, the large-scale use of chemical
fertilizers and pesticides, and soil degradation and compaction
(National Bureau of Statistics of China, 2009).
As the income of small-scale production decreased, some
farmers started to expand their farms by renting farmland from
households that no longer were farming. The large farms could
rent land through the land-stock cooperative system etc., with the
support of the local governments (Xie, 2009). The number of large
farms in China is still relatively low, because land belonging to
elderly farmers is often not available for renting, as these farmers
depend on their land to provide them with an income, as there is
no pension.
Most of the young generations do not wish to become farmers,
because their higher education enables them to apply for more
2.4. Educational levels in urban and rural areas
With the development of China’s economy and implementation
of a compulsory education policy, more and more people are gaining
a higher education with universities and colleges having increased
student numbers significantly since 1999. The percentage of people
attending higher secondary education and tertiary education in
China is increasing year on year (Fig. 2). This educational betterment
increases environmental awareness and provides large numbers of
people who are technically skilled and can contribute to the
development of multi-scale biogas plants (Fig. 2). The children of
the rural population are also better educated, but most of the
educated people move to the cities, leaving a rural population with
a relatively low educational level and poor professional and techni-
cal qualifications (Du et al., 2005). This has created a situation where
skilled manpower is available, but not in the regions where it is
most needed.
3. Government policies relating to biogas production
Biomass is a widely available energy resource in China and the
central government strongly supports the development and
application of biomass energy, including biogas, bioethanol,
biodiesel, biomass electricity and biomass briquettes for heating
and cooking. To this end, it has formulated a series of policies and
programmes to promote the development of energy from biomass
(Zhang et al., 2009).
3.1. Energy policies
In 1986, the China National Economic Committee issued the
‘‘Circular on Improving Rural Energy Development’’, which was the
first policy paper on renewable energy development that promul-
gated the importance of bioenergy. Since the ‘‘Eighth Five-Year Plan’’
6076 X. Jiang et al. / Energy Policy 39 (2011) 6073–6081
(1991–1995) China’s government has regarded renewable energy as
an important strategic measure for its ‘‘Agenda 21’’ vision and
included this in all the national economic development programmes
and goals. In 1995, China’s government approved the ‘‘1996–2010
New Energy and Renewable Energy Development Programme’’,
which provided a strong impetus for the development of renewable
energy (Zhao and Fan, 2010).
China’s government issued the ‘‘Renewable Energy Law’’ in
2005, which came into force on 1 January 2006 (Central People’s
Government of the People’s Republic of China, 2005), and
‘‘Renewable Energy Prices and Cost-sharing Management Trial
Procedures’’ were issued to encourage the various domestic
enterprises to become involved in the renewable energy devel-
opment. The law stated that the price of power generated by
biomass should be decided by the central government and it set
the subsidy standard of power at 0.25 CNY (Abbreviation of
Chinese Yuan, and a dollar equivalent to 8.07 CNY at Jan 1,
2006 and 6.62 CNY at Jan 1, 2011, and same below; Bank of China,
2006, 2011) per kWh on the basis of desulphurized coal electricity
price transferred into national grid (National Development
and Reform Committee of China, 2006b). On 7 February 2006,
the National Development and Reform Committee issued the
‘‘Regulations Related to Renewable Energy Power Generation’’ as
the supporting regulations for the ‘‘Renewable Energy Law’’ and
the ‘‘Renewable Energy Prices and Cost-sharing Management Trial
Procedures’’, which clearly regulated the approval and manage-
ment methods of renewable energy power generation projects. It
also provided guidance for implementation of standards for
enterprises entering the renewable energy industry and encour-
aged domestic enterprises to become involved in the develop-
ment of renewable energy (National Development and Reform
Committee of China, 2006a). In 2007, China’s Government
published the ‘‘Medium and Long-term Development Program
for Renewable Energy’’, and on 1 April 2010, the revised ‘‘Renew-
able Energy Law’’ became effective, which stipulated that the
State would implement a fully supported system for the power
generated by renewable energy (National People’s Congress of the
People’s Republic of China, 2009).
Thus beyond doubt renewable energy, including biogas is
highly prioritized in China.
3.2. Environmental policies
Since the establishment of the People’s Republic of China and
the reforms and opening of the country’s economy in the 1980s,
the government has issued a number of environmental laws,
regulations and standards to support environmental protection
and to develop bioenergy production. The most important
include: ‘‘Environmental Protection Law’’, ‘‘Water Pollution
Prevention Law’’, ‘‘Atmospheric Pollution Prevention Law’’, ‘‘Inte-
grated Emission Standard of Air Pollutants’’ (GB16297-1996),
‘‘Standards for Irrigation Water Quality’’ (GB5084-92), ‘‘Quality
Standard for Ground Water’’(GB/T14848-93) and ‘‘Environmental
Quality Standards for Surface Water’’ (GB3838-2002). In order to
further push environmental protection, China has established the
‘‘Environmental Impact Assessment System’’ and the ‘‘Three
Simultaneous Systems’’, which means that the factory and its
facilities to treat wastes should be designed, constructed and
opened at the same time to facilitate environmental management
of construction projects through the ‘‘Environmental Impact
Assessment Law’’ and ‘‘Environmental Protection Management
Regulations for Construction Projects’’. These stipulate that
construction projects must undergo an environmental impact
assessment, and the environmental protection facilities must be
designed, constructed and implemented at the same time as the
construction projects (Ministry of Environmental Protection of
China, 2010).
In order to control the pollution from livestock and poultry
production facilities, the following measures have been estab-
lished and implemented (Ministry of Environmental Protection of
China, 2010): ‘‘Discharge Standard of Pollutants for Livestock and
Poultry Breeding’’ (GB18569-2001), ‘‘Management Approach for
Pollution Prevention of Livestock and Poultry Farms’’ (2001),
‘‘Criteria for evaluating the environmental quality of the livestock
and poultry farm’’ (GB/T19525.2-2004) and ‘‘Technical Specifica-
tions for Pollution Treatment Projects of Livestock and Poultry
Farms’’ (HJ497-2009). The construction of medium and large-
scale livestock and poultry farms also comes under the ‘‘Environ-
mental Impact Assessment System’’ and the ‘‘Three Simultaneous
Systems’’.
All of these regulations recognize biogas technology as an
environmentally friendly measure that, in addition to energy
production, may contribute to a more efficient and safe recycling
of manure to fields or fish ponds (Chen et al., 2010).
3.3. Economic policies
Since the beginning of the 1970s the Chinese government has
supported construction of biogas digesters on livestock farms. The
support from the government includes energy loans with an
interest-free system aimed at large and medium-scale biogas
plant projects, solar energy utilization and wind power genera-
tion technology (Gao et al., 2006).
Since the ‘‘Rural Ecological Enrichment Project’’ was proposed
by the Ministry of Agriculture, biogas construction projects have
been implemented all over the country at the beginning of this
century. The government has also encouraged the development of
environmentally friendly energy and engineering technologies,
which include biogas digesters (Zhou and Lin, 2004). The central
government has given high priority to the rural biogas sector. The
support is given through rural small-scale, public, infrastructure
projects and rural basic construction projects, particularly since
the implementation of the ‘‘National Debt Project for Rural Biogas
Construction’’ in 2003 (Ministry of Agriculture and National
Development and Reform Commission of China, 2004). From
2003 to the end of 2009, the total investment from the central
government to the rural biogas industry reached over 19.0 billion
CNY (Table 3), of which about 82% went to the construction of
household biogas digesters, about 10% went to the construction of
medium and large-scale biogas plants, and about 8% financed
service systems. According to the ‘‘Management Approach of
National Debt Project for the Rural Biogas Construction (Trial)’’
(Ministry of Agriculture and National Development and Reform
Commission of China, 2004), the subsidy from Central Govern-
ment is from 800 CNY to 1200 CNY per 8 m3 of household biogas
digester at different areas and 20,000 CNY per 100 m3 of large and
medium-scale biogas digester for the building materials including
cement, river sand, pebble and bricks, wages for the technicians
and key equipments, including biogas stove and accessories,
while the domestic users paid for the remaining costs. This
investment during the first 10 years of the 21st century resulted
in the largest ever annual growth of the biogas sector in China
(Cao, 2009). In 2010, the revised ‘‘Renewable Energy Law’’
established the renewable energy development fund which
Table 3
Investment from China’s government in the biogas industry from 2003 to 2009.
Year 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 Total
Investment (billion CNY) 1.0 1.0 1.0 2.5 2.5 6.0 5.0 19.0
 X. Jiang et al. / Energy Policy 39 (2011) 6073–6081
consists of State special fund and additional renewable energy
surcharge 0.002 CNY per kWh in the sale price of power. This fund
provides financial support to the power-generating plants
through the provision of a premium price for the power originat-
ing from renewable energy production (NPC of P.R.C, 2009).
In order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and global
warming, the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) was estab-
lished through the ‘‘United Nations Framework Convention on
Climate Change’’ and the ‘‘Kyoto Protocol’’. Through the CDM,
developing countries can receive advanced technologies and
funds from developed countries to implement projects to reduce
greenhouse gas emissions (Liu, 2010). In 2006, 135 CDM projects
had been approved by the Chinese government. The CDM projects
include wind power, small hydropower stations, industrial energy
savings, biogas power generation, etc. Local governments and
enterprises are increasingly interested in implementing CDM, and
many provinces have established CDM Service Offices to promote
the cooperation between Chinese enterprises and developed
countries to develop CDM projects. As a consequence, the total
number of CDM projects approved by the Chinese government
reached 2685 on 7 September 2010, (National Development and
Reform Commission of China, 2010). The implementation of CDM
projects in China has helped many enterprises to obtain advanced
renewable energy technologies, including biogas technology, with
the purpose of reducing GHG emission.
4. Adjusting biogas development scales to local requirements
4.1. Changing scales
Biogas production from anaerobic bio-digesters has been
widely adopted in China for many years. Development and
construction of Chinese household biogas digesters began in the
1970s and these small rural biogas digesters have dominated in
China. The digesters were designed to use biomass from house-
hold sizes from four to eight persons and a farm production of
two to ten pigs or cattle. By the end of 2009, there were over
30.5 million household biogas digesters in China and the total
biogas yield was 12.4 billion m3 in 2009, which is equivalent to
19.0 million t of standard coal (tce) (Fig. 3; Liu et al., 2008; Rural
Energy Industry Association of China, 2009).
In North China, family farm sizes range between 10 and 30 Mu
(15 Chinese Mu equals 1 ha) and the main crops in these drier
regions are maize, wheat and cotton, while in South China, the
Fig. 3. The development in the number of rural household biogas digesters from
1991 to 2009.
6077
farm size is about 2–10 Mu, and the main crop is rice as the
rainfall is adequate (Chen, 2003). In North China, crop biomass
production per household is a significant source of energy, while
this is not the case in South China.
In the past 40 years, the biogas technology for smallholders in
rural areas has improved significantly, and many standardized
and efficient biogas digesters for smallholders have been devel-
oped and have replaced the Water-pressure Digester, which
dominated the market in the mid-20th century. Examples of
new designs are the Hydraulic Cylinder Digester, Separated
Floating Bell-Type Digester, Meandering Stream Fabric Digester,
Prefabricated Block Digester, and Spheroidal Digester (Zhang
et al., 2009; Wang et al., 2007a). The objective is not only to
provide energy, but also to use the biogas technology in sustain-
able agricultural systems for recycling the biomass, such as the
integrated pig–biogas–vegetable systems in North China (Qi et al.,
2005) and livestock–biogas–fruit systems in South China (Chen,
1997). The pig, cattle and poultry manure, human sewage, in
combination with crop straw, fruit or vegetable residues are used
as raw material in the bio-digester, which typically has a volume
of 8–10 m3 and produces between 0.1 and 0.3 m3 gases per m3 of
digester volume per day (Qi, 2003).
With smallholder farming gradually decreasing and larger-
scale farms becoming more common, arable farms now measure
from tens to thousands of Mu, livestock farms stock from tens to
thousands of pigs or cattle, and poultry farms from thousands to
hundred thousands of chickens (Yao et al., 2002). The medium
and large-scale livestock and poultry farms are mainly located in
the eastern coastal regions and in the regions surrounding the big
cities (Gerber et al., 2005), such as Shandong, Guangdong, Hunan,
Henan and Hubei provinces. Many of these are located in
residential areas and close to water sources so the discharge of
waste can cause huge environmental pressure on the environ-
ment (Chen et al., 2003). At the same time, large-scale livestock
farms necessitate to growing their own large amounts of crops
and vegetables as feed besides transporting in vegetables and
grain, and large-scale production of crops and vegetables neces-
sitates large amounts of organic fertilizers. Medium and large-
scale biogas plants may solve some of the problems related to the
recycling of manure to the fields (Hjorth et al., 2009).
The process of developing household biogas digesters has built
up the expertise in building the digesters, and in the management
and services for biogas projects, also in cooperation with experts
from countries with advanced technology for large-scale biogas
production such as Denmark, Germany and Sweden (Wang et al.,
2009). All these factors have supported the development and
construction of medium and large-scale biogas plants in China. In
recent years, at the same time the number of household-size
biogas digesters is gradually increasing, the number of medium
and large-scale biogas plants is rising rapidly. China had 748 large
and medium size biogas plants in 1998 (Wang et al., 2009), but by
the end of 2009, there were 56,856 of medium and large-scale
biogas plants that annually produced 0.92 billion m3 biogas (Rural
Energy Industry Association of China, 2009). Of these, 322 large-
scale biogas plants with total digester volume over 500 m3 were
fed industrial organic waste, and agricultural waste was used for
3717 large-scale biogas plants, 18,853 medium-scale biogas
plants with total digester volume between 50 and 500 m3 and
33,964 small-scale biogas plants with total digester volume
between 20 and 50 m3 (Table 4; Tu and Wu, 2010).
4.2. Advantages and problems with household biogas digesters
The biogas production using agricultural waste has many
benefits in addition to energy production for heating, cooking
and lighting. These include using the biogas digestate as an
6078 X. Jiang et al. / Energy Policy 39 (2011) 6073–6081
Table 4
Number of biogas plants by the end of 2009 in China (Tu and Wu, 2010).
Scale of Large-scale biogas Medium- Small-scale
biogas plants scale biogas biogas plants
plants plants
Type of Industrial Agricultural Agricultural Agricultural
waste organic waste waste waste
waste
Number 322 3717 18,853 33,964
organic fertilizer for the plant production, cleaner sanitation and
less disease, less dung/odour giving a healthier living environ-
ment, reduced indoor air pollution in kitchen, improved toilets,
reduced the biochemical oxygen demand (BOD) in waste streams,
less use of chemical fertilizer and pesticides, reducing the use
of fossil fuels, greenhouse gas emissions, etc. (Sommer and
Norddahl, 2008; Hu, 2008; Gao et al., 2006; Zhou and Lin, 2004;
Liu et al., 2008; Chen, 1997; Wang et al., 2007b).
However, some of the household bio-digesters built since the
1970s with support from China’s central and local governments
are not operating. This is particularly the case with biogas
digesters constructed before the 1990s (Zhang et al., 2007; Hu,
2008; Chen et al., 2010; Ma et al., 2010b).
The reasons why the household biogas production did not live
up to expectations are related to problems with the technology,
maintenance, technical support for the biogas digester owners,
who are poor smallholders (Han et al., 2008). More specifically,
there is lack of high-efficiency technologies for smallholder biogas
digesters in cold regions (Shi et al., 2009). In these regions the
biogas production rate is low during winter when the farmers
have a large need of energy (Ferrer et al., 2009). The household
biogas digester in rural China is a concrete construction
submerged in the soil to ensure a constant temperature, but
without any technologies to adjust the operating temperature and
to mix the digestate. The temperature of these biogas digesters is
close to the ambient air temperature, which leads to low biogas
production efficiency. The minimum temperature for biogas
production is around 10 1C, with the rate of production increasing
with increased temperature (Lindorfer et al., 2008). In conse-
quence, the household biogas production is low and unstable in
North China as the daily mean temperature is between 10 and
15 1C, and the yearly window with higher temperatures where
the level of biogas production is acceptable is about 5–8 months.
In central China, the suitable time window for biogas production
is about 7–9 months. Only in southern China is the biogas
production from unheated digesters adequate for 10–12 months
a year (Ma, 2003).
Farmers having little knowledge of and training in household
biogas production is another reason for low production. Most
farmers in rural China have little formal education, and most of
them have no access to information about environmental protec-
tion, agroecology and biogas energy. Thus these farmers are more
interested in the short-term costs and benefits and they are not
interested in a long-term investment like a biogas plant. Some
farmers have constructed the biogas digesters with financial
subsidies from central and local governments, which are equiva-
lent to 40–60% of the total construction costs. The majority of
these farmers have not received adequate support and training in
managing the digesters, they are not introduced to safety proce-
dures, management of the digesters and they are not familiar
with the construction of the system (Zhang et al., 2007). Thus,
rural biogas efficiency and profits are relatively low and fatal
accidents have happened when cleaning the digester. In addition,
some users maybe give up the breeding of livestock for their low
income in breeding, moving to cities to find other jobs, natural
disasters such as earthquake, flood, etc. Therefore, some users
have given up the operation of their bio-digesters.
Total
A further reason for the low production is the size of the
digester. The size ensures a biogas production that fulfils the
needs of the household. The digester is therefore very small and
the method of biogas production is simple with low efficiency.
This leads to a low rate of mechanization, and an unpleasant
environment for managing the digester. Neither have many
56,856 biogas producers access to technologies for managing and recy-
cling the digestate to fields. The biogas production may therefore
cause odour emissions, eutrophication of surface water and
pollution of groundwater (Ma et al., 2010b).
Finally, the farmers managing household biogas digesters do
not have access to follow-up financial support, or consultants that
can contribute to monitoring the digester and provide technical
service (Zhang et al., 2006). The lack of assistance leads to poor
maintenance and operation of the biogas plants.
4.3. Advantages of medium and large-scale biogas plants
Recent surveys have shown that medium and large-scale
biogas plants give more benefits to the user and society than
household biogas digesters (Wang et al., 2009).
Medium and large-scale biogas plants can treat the large
amounts of manure produced by large-scale livestock and poultry
farms and also municipal and industrial organic waste streams.
The large digesters provide large amounts of renewable energy to
society and due to the larger size of the plant there may be
technology and management skills available to ensure an efficient
distribution of the digestate to neighbouring farmers, who can use
this high-value organic fertilizer to meet crop needs. The cost per
unit of gas produced is also reduced due to the economies of scale
that can be made.
The construction and operation of medium and large-scale
biogas plants can benefit from the use of advanced biogas produc-
tion technologies, such as heat extraction (Lu et al., 2010) or power
generation, which increases the financial return from the plant
(Lu et al., 2010; Chen, 1997).
The construction of medium and large-scale biogas plants
benefits from the use of standardized and advanced engineering
equipment and materials such as heaters, stirrers, monitors and
fibre reinforced plastic (FRP). They facilitate rapid construction
and technological support and maintenance and therefore a high
and constant biogas yield. These plants have better facilities to
manage the incoming and treated biomass, i.e. storage and
treatment of manure and digestate. These plants can therefore
contribute to a sustainable reduction of pollution and fertilizer
use (Michel et al., 2010). The higher degree of mechanization
reduces the labour input and also improves the working environ-
ment and health of the workers operating the plants due to lower
odour emissions.
Finally, the operation and management of medium and large-
scale biogas plants can create jobs. Employment of skilled
technicians and workers is a prerequisite for running the biogas
plants with advanced fermentation technologies.
5. Development and future perspectives of the biogas
industry
The population density in China is high, and there are large
economic and natural differences between the western and the
eastern provinces. With the development of China’s economy,
there is increasing concern about environmental problems and
the shortage of energy resources (Tao and Xue, 2008). The
 X. Jiang et al. / Energy Policy 39 (2011) 6073–6081
development and utilization of more advanced renewable and
energy-saving technologies are a must if China’s economic devel-
opment is to be sustainable. Facing the problems of traditional
household biogas digesters, China’s national and local leaders are
taking more active measures to promote the development of
modern biogas plants and increase the biogas production effi-
ciency besides inspiring the development of household biogas
digesters continually and the reparation of waste digesters.
On the policy front the Chinese government has decided to
impose strict and detailed policies for environmental protection and
renewable energy. The ‘‘Renewable Energy law’’ from 2006 was
revised in 2010, and the Central government decided with this law
to provide regulations, procedures and subsidies to promote renew-
able energy production. The revised regulations focus on medium
and large-scale livestock and poultry breeding farms, which –
according to the new directives – have to fulfil the requirements
of the ‘‘Environmental Impact Assessment System’’ and the ‘‘Three
Simultaneous Systems’’. Before 2010 only industrial construction
projects were required to fulfil these requirements.
More active financial policies for bioenergy are gradually being
implemented in China. In the past, financial support was provided
for the construction of biogas plants, but this did not include
support and service to maintain the plants. The biogas production
therefore often became inefficient with time and biogas plants
were closed down. To prevent this, the central government has
decided to use some of their financial incentives to the sector to
support the provision of monitoring and consultancy by local
authorities and commercial enterprises (Cao, 2009).
Local governments focus on improving the rural biogas service
systems, continuously introducing incentive policies to encourage
the setup of various service systems for biogas production. These
must be tailored to a market economy and meet the needs of
users. Many local service and consultancy organizations have
been created, which will contribute to the efficient operation of
biogas projects (Lin et al., 2009).
As previously mentioned, construction and monitoring has
been made easier by introducing standardized engineering equip-
ment and materials in the construction of biogas projects and the
management of biogas production. The fibre reinforced plastic
(FRP) and modified plastic and other new materials have gradu-
ally found their way into the construction of biogas digesters and
plants, while drainage facilities for biogas slurry and residue have
also been widely implemented. This is partially through the
biogas standardization initiative that is an integral part of
national and agricultural standardization work. In 2009, 31 biogas
construction standards had been published and implemented by
the Chinese government (Li et al., 2005), 21 covering rural
household biogas digesters and 10 for large and medium-scale
biogas projects.
In recent years biogas power generation plants have been con-
structed and put into operation. Most of the mature domestic biogas
power-generating plants produce between 24 and 600 kW, but
there is a large market for power-generating plants below 20 kW
(Ding, 2007). The power generated from small and medium-scale
biogas power plants can provide energy for internal use on farms and
enterprises, while the power generated from large-scale biogas power
generation plants can be transferred into the national grid. The largest
Chinese poultry breeding plant Minhe Animal Husbandry Co. Ltd. in
the Shandong province produces about 500 t of chicken manure per
day. This manure is fermented in a biogas power generation plant
constructed in November 2009, and the power generated transferred
to the national network. The expected annual power production is
more than 20,000 MWh (Zhang and Ju, 2009).
With the afore-mentioned challenges facing the biogas industry,
certain areas of biogas production will need boosting to support the
development of a sustainable biogas industry in China.
6079
The authors recommend that there is a need of models to
assess and control biogas production in unheated biogas digesters
in China, which produce fluctuating rates of biogas due to
variation in temperature and sometimes no biogas due to low
temperatures, and these models have been studied for many
years in Europe (Gebremedhin et al., 2004, 2005; Sommer and
Norddahl, 2008; Wu and Bibeau, 2006). The benefits of heating
may be offset by the increasing complexity of the plant, and
increased production and heating will require energy. The models
need to assess and analyse the relationship between biogas yields,
heating costs and heat loss at varying temperatures from low
ambient to 50–60 1C, so the economically optimal designs for
biogas plants can be determined and the effect of changes in
temperature in unheated plant predicted (Lindorfer et al., 2008).
Scientific and technological support should be strengthened to
solve the technical bottlenecks in the current development of
biogas (Ma, 2003; Ward et al., 2008; Tu and Wu, 2010). The small
biogas digesters suitable for small farms and households still
dominate in China. Therefore, the information obtained from
running models that simulate the effect of very low and variable
temperatures can be used as the basis for designing biogas
digesters with simple heating and stirring, which will be efficient
in regions with cold winters. In these areas biogas production
rates can be increased and stabilized using biogas digesters
heated by solar power, heat exchange or using some of the biogas
produced for heating (Shi et al., 2009).
The authors recommend that the local governments in China
may support biogas production by appropriate pricing systems
aimed at either gate fees or payment for inputs to and outputs of
the biogas digester using appropriate price estimation for the
input raw materials that include manure, crop straw, industrial
organic waste, municipal organic waste, etc., and the end biogas
products comprising biogas and organic fertilizer. The price
structure must be based on easily measured properties, for
example the biogas production potential, the methane content
of the biogas and the carbon and nitrogen contents of the manure.
The price setting must encourage the cooperation between the
users of biogas plants, farmers, enterprises and urban sanitation
authorities and promote the development of medium and large-
scale biogas plants further.
The authors think that new and stricter regulations should be
established to support the development of renewable energy and
reduce pollution from livestock and poultry farms. For example,
biogas plants and farms should have sufficient manure storage
capacity to meet local agricultural requirements and protect the
environment under the regulations in Europe (Schröder and
Neeteson, 2008; Sonneveld et al., 2008), while in China there
are no regulations like above to restrict the farms and biogas
digesters at present.
The authors recommend that the financial subsidies for biogas
production should be changed from only supporting the
construction of biogas projects to supporting the end use of
biogas products and the services from technicians and profes-
sional companies in whole China, which has been explored in
some areas (Fang, 2010). This will greatly promote the production
efficiency of biogas, the production of organic fertilizer, timely
technical service, etc.
The authors also recommend that service systems for biogas
production should be further improved. Long-term, prompt and
efficient follow-up services are the key to the stable operation and
efficient production of biogas plants. Such services have been
started up, and some places actively explore various service
mechanisms to improve the service (Ge and Yang, 2010), but this
is by no means yet a standard procedure in China. The national
authority should summarize the experiences gained so far and
promote the best-working model to encourage the establishment
6080 X. Jiang et al. / Energy Policy 39 (2011) 6073–6081
of professional service companies and organizations and provide
long-term, prompt and efficient follow-up services for biogas
plants.
Acknowledgement
This study has been supported with a grant from Energi Fyns
Udviklingsfond.
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