Using project finance to fund biogas plants.

Využitie projektového financovania na financovanie bioplynových staníc.

Finance, biogas, debt, equit.

This presentation will outline how project finance can be effectively deployed to fund biogas plants across Europe, set against a rapidly evolving energy landscape and a major scale-up challenge.

Europe currently consumes around 350 billion cubic metres (BCM) of gas per year, with virtually all of it imported. Following the war in Ukraine and the resulting sanctions on Russian gas, energy security will be shown to have overtaken decarbonisation as the dominant political driver for energy policy. In response, the EU will aim to increase biomethane and biogas production from around 3 BCM today to 35 BCM by 2030.

Achieving this target will require a very large expansion of infrastructure. Industry estimates indicate that around 8,500 new biogas and biomethane plants will need to be developed across Europe, compared with a much smaller existing base, in order to reach the 35 BCM target at scale. This expansion will be capital intensive, with total investment requirements of approximately EUR 83 billion across the sector by 2030.

The European Biogas Association highlights that only around EUR 25 billion has currently been allocated or committed, leaving a significant financing gap. The broader investment outlook suggests that additional capital will be heavily front-loaded into the 2026–2030 period as projects move from planning to construction.

Despite this gap, Europe has substantial underlying potential, with sufficient sustainable feedstock to far exceed 35 BCM and potentially reach much higher production levels if fully mobilised.

Within this context,this presentation will explain how project finance works and how it is used to fund biogas projects. The presentation will conclude that project finance will be essential to bridging the investment gap and delivering Europe’s biogas expansion agenda

Michael Ware is a Senior Director within the Green Giraffe Advisory London team.

He is a Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy (CIPFA) accountant and holds an MBA from Manchester Business School.

He brings more than 20 years of financial advisory experience and is leading the biogas initiatives at Green Giraffe. Before joining Green Giraffe, Michael worked for 15 years as a partner at BDO in London, where he was responsible for the firm’s energy finance team. He also served as a Non-Executive Director at Pretoria Energy, which was one of the largest biogas plants in Europe.

Green Giraffe is a specialist financial advisory firm focused on renewable energy infrastructure, with a strong track record in project finance across wind, solar, and increasingly bioenergy assets.

The firm operates at the intersection of developers, investors, and lenders, helping structure bankable projects by aligning revenue certainty, risk allocation, and long-term capital requirements. Its role is often most prominent in early-stage financial structuring, where project viability depends on securing offtake agreements, regulatory clarity, and appropriately layered debt and equity.