Europe's Biogas Plants Could Profit from Their Own Waste

The EBA wants the EU to certify digestate as biofertiliser, turning a compliance burden into a revenue stream for biogas operators

20 May 2026

A biogas plant produces two things. Most of Europe only pays for one.

The residue from anaerobic digestion, called digestate, is laden with nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium. For years it has been treated as a liability. A report published on 20 May 2026 by the European Biogas Association argues that this needs to change.

Released alongside the European Commission's Fertiliser Action Plan, the EBA's paper urges the EU to formally certify digestate as a bio-based fertiliser. Reclassification, the association contends, would give plant operators a second revenue stream and cut Europe's reliance on imported synthetic fertilisers. Both outcomes are useful. The timing, for a continent rebuilding its agricultural supply chains, is convenient.

The obstacle is legal rather than scientific. Under most EU member-state frameworks, digestate is classed as waste. That classification imposes storage restrictions, permitting costs, and compliance burdens that depress the economics of new projects. The EU has set a 2030 biomethane target of 35 billion cubic metres per year. Current trajectories will not deliver it.

Portugal has already acted. A 2025 decree removed digestate from that country's waste framework, permitting farm application without additional hurdles. The EBA would like the rest of the continent to follow.

Caution comes from environmental researchers and farming advocates, who point out that digestate from mixed industrial feedstocks can carry heavy metals and pharmaceutical residues. Their concern is not that reclassification is wrong, but that it must be structured carefully. The EBA accepts this and calls for a tiered framework separating agricultural-grade from industrial-grade streams.

For anyone financing an anaerobic digestion project, the implications are direct. A compliance cost turned into a certified, saleable product changes the return calculation considerably. With EU fertiliser policy now favouring domestic bio-based supply, that shift may arrive faster than the industry expected.