ORANGE IS THE NEW GREEN A SITE ANALYSIS FOR BIOLOGICAL HYDROGEN PRODUCTION IN BIOGAS PLANTS IN GERMANY

There are many developments in sustainable hydrogen production, like the increasing usage of electrolysis, which accounts for 5% of the produced hydrogen worldwide, and the current research in biological production methods. One of these methods is the usage of microorganisms to produce hydrogen through the biological pathways of dark fermentation. It can use renewable raw materials, municipal waste, liquid manure, or sewage water as biomass to produce a hydrogen-rich gas. Hydrogen generation with dark fermentation is a promising method because the process can be integrated into existing biogas plants to use the existing infrastructure to produce biogas and hydrogen as an additional product. However, modifying the existing biogas plants is not feasible or economical for the operator in every case. This paper frames a site analysis conducted to find the most suitable biogas plants for integrating dark fermentation and assess the potential of hydrogen production via dark fermentation in Germany. The site analysis was based on Marktstammdatenregister, Biogas Datenbank, and the Biogaspartner database.