Chinese five-year plans and biogas and biomethane. How the targets in documents translate into the market

In China, biogas policy does not rest on a single law but on a cascade of documents: from the five-year plan, through sectoral plans for renewable energy and bioenergy, to guidelines by many institutions and provincial regulations. Knowledge of this structure is essential for assessing reports about “targets” — because a target in one document often has little to do with actual production. Below we describe three documents in which specific figures appear, and point out what is missing from them.

The 13th bioenergy plan (2016–2020)

The plan was issued by the National Energy Administration (NEA) on 5 December 2016. According to the IEA description, for the base year 2015 it gives 19 billion m³ of methane from biogas, with a footnote describing this value as theoretical: 14 billion m³ was to come from rural households and 5 billion m³ from large projects. For 2020 the plan set a target of 8 billion m³ a year of biogas from large facilities (replacing 9.6 million t of standard coal), 0.5 GW of capacity in biogas power plants (against 0.3 GW in 2015) and 30 million t a year of solid biomass. The IEA does not give a separate target for biomethane in this description.

The guidelines of December 2019

Document 发改能源规〔2019〕1895号, issued by ten central institutions and dated 4 December 2019, set a target of more than 10 billion m³ of biomethane (bio natural gas) a year in 2025 and more than 20 billion m³ in 2030. It also announced an examination of a “green gas” quota mechanism, land and tax preferences, and the possibility of injection into urban networks. We describe this document in more detail in a separate post.

The 14th renewable energy plan

The plan, numbered 发改能源〔2021〕1445号, was published in June 2022; according to Climate Cooperation China it was issued by the NDRC together with eight other departments and institutions, and a footnote on that site gives the document's date as 21 October 2021. The text provides that:

• in 2025 annual electricity generation from renewable sources is to reach about 3.3 trillion kWh, and generation from wind and solar is to double over the plan period,
• non-electric use of renewable energy (heating from geothermal and biomass, biomass fuels, solar collectors) is to reach at least 60 million t of standard coal,
• biomass is to serve clean heating, and in rural areas outside the key pollution control zones household pellet stoves are proposed,
• biomethane is to be accelerated: in every demonstration county 1–3 projects with annual production of about 10 million m³ are planned, with the possibility of injection into the grid and use in transport, boilers and the power sector,
• power generation from the incineration of municipal waste and from agricultural and forest biomass and biogas is to grow gradually, and liquid fuels from non-food biomass are also supported.

Conclusion: the renewable plan concentrates on wind and photovoltaics but, unlike some press summaries, it also contains specific provisions on biomethane. We did not find in the descriptions a nationwide volume target for biomethane in this plan; the target of 10 and 20 billion m³ comes from the 2019 guidelines.

Why declarations do not equal production

Provisions on quotas, tariffs or preferences are only an announcement. Assessing delivery depends on prices (biomethane must compete with grid gas or be supported), the logistics of agricultural feedstocks, the management of digestate and competition for capital with wind, photovoltaics and hydrogen. These are analytical conclusions, not data from the documents.

How to read Chinese figures

It is always worth checking whether we are talking about raw biogas, biomethane or energy; whether the target concerns capacity or production; and whether the figure is a theoretical potential (like the 19 billion m³ in the bioenergy plan) or actual production. English translations often simplify the terminology.

What this means for Poland/Europe

The Chinese example teaches that volume targets without a gas offtake mechanism and a digestate market are rarely met — as in Polish discussions about 2 billion m³ of biomethane by 2030. The most important things are the instruments: tariffs, quotas, guarantees of origin and simple grid access.