The Ministry of Climate, Energy and Environment has begun designing a bio‑gas supply certification system. The goal is to prepare a draft of the system next year and revise related laws the following year to implement it. The ministry plans to expand demand for bio‑gas through the design of the supply certification system.
According to the bio‑gas information portal on the 3rd, bio‑gas is produced when organic waste such as sewage sludge, excreta, livestock manure, food waste, and animal and plant residues undergoes anaerobic digestion. Its main components are methane and carbon dioxide, and it has properties similar to natural gas.
Bio‑gas is known to deliver various economic and environmental effects, including improving energy self‑sufficiency, reducing waste disposal expense, and supporting carbon neutrality in the institutional sector. In response, the ministry has pursued a "strategy to boost bio‑gas production and use" for eco‑friendly treatment of organic waste resources and the realization of carbon neutrality.
A representative policy is the bio‑gas production target system. In 2022, the ministry enacted the Act on the Promotion of Production and Use of Bio‑gas (Bio‑gas Act), imposing an obligation on private and public operators that emit large volumes of organic waste resources to produce a certain proportion of bio‑gas.
Accordingly, the public sector will begin producing bio‑gas this year and must produce 50% of organic waste resources as bio‑gas by 2034. The private sector will start next year and must produce 10% as bio‑gas by 2034. The government aims to expand the figure to 80% for both public and private by 2050.
With the implementation of this system, domestic bio‑gas production is expected to increase starting this year, but the institutional foundation to efficiently utilize the produced bio‑gas remains insufficient. Currently, produced bio‑gas is mostly consumed within facilities or partially used in nearby areas.
In fact, about 15% of bio‑gas produced over the past three years was discarded without being used. According to data titled "Status of Bio‑gas Production" obtained by Democratic Party of Korea lawmaker Kim Tae-seon from the Ministry of Environment, the non‑utilization rates in the public and private institutional sectors were ▲2021: 15.4% ▲2022: 14.6% ▲2023: 14.9%.
To address these limitations, the ministry is pushing to introduce a bio‑gas supply certification system modeled after the solar REC (renewable energy certificate) program.
Under the system, within the renewable portfolio standard (RPS), power producers can certify that they generated electricity from renewable energy and can trade the certificates.
If such a bio‑gas certification system is implemented, producers will be able to inject bio‑gas into city gas pipelines or sell it to combined heat and power plants, and they are expected to be able to sell it to distant corporations by transacting certificates. Corporations can receive official certification of eco‑friendly activities by purchasing certificates.
A ministry official said, "We plan to prepare a draft of the system next year and revise the laws the following year to implement the supply certification system," adding, "Through this, both demand and supply of bio‑gas are expected to expand."