Storengy Deutschland, a unit of France’s Engie, and CM Fluids, a biogas specialist from Bavaria, are forming a joint venture to build a bio-LNG plant in Germany’s Nuremberg region.
According to a statement by Storengy, the partners would build the bio-LNG plant on the site of a biogas plant which is fed with the remains of regional vegetable production, horse manure, and grass mown at Nuremberg Airport.
This biogas would be liquefied and processed to produce liquid biomethane for customers in the transport sector, and bio-CO2, Storengy said.
Storengy said the plant would produce about 700 tonnes of bio-LNG each year, enough to fuel around 2,800 vehicles with a 250 kilogram tank filling.
The bio-CO2 will be made available to prospective customers for use, for example, in industry.
Storengy added that this joint venture is an “important step” in consolidating its strategic focus in the renewable gases sector.
More than 20 production sites for generating biomethane are already operated in France by the company’s French subsidiary, Storengy SAS.
“This experience and expertise will be used, together with CM Fluids, to drive the market ramp-up of bio-LNG in Germany,” it said.
This planned facility in Nuremberg would be much smaller compared to the bio-LNG production plant Shell is building near the German city of Cologne, the largest in the country and scheduled to go online in 2023.
Germany will host several other smaller facilities as well. These include smaller plants Germany’s Ruhe Group is building in cooperation with Ecospray, REEFUELERY’s plant near Fulda, and others.
According to NGVA Europe’s data, Germany hosts 142 LNG filling stations, the highest amount of LNG stations for trucks in Europe.