France ends the BG16 tariff: new electricity-generating biogas plants without purchase contracts from September 2025

With the decree of 8 September 2025 (arrêté, JO of 9 September 2025), France ended the BG16 tariff for new installations producing electricity from biogas. BG16, i.e. the arrêté of 13 December 2016, covered installations with a capacity below 500 kW fed mainly with biogas from the digestion of non-hazardous waste and raw plant matter. The act first amends BG16 and then repeals it. According to Légifrance, Articles 1 and 2 came into force on 10 September. Articles 3 and 4 (including the repeal of BG16) came into force on 11 September 2025.

What exactly changes

According to the law firm Seban Avocats, the repeal operates for the future. New installations that did not submit a complete application before the repeal can no longer obtain a purchase obligation contract under BG16 (according to Seban Avocats the cut-off is 9 September 2025). Projects with a complete application submitted before the repeal retain their rights. The decree also amends the BG11 tariff (arrêté of 19 May 2011) and the terms of contracts already concluded.

Contract termination without compensation

Previously, a producer wishing to end a contract early had to show that the interruption of production was beyond its control and obtain the prefect's consent. The decree adds three grounds on which the termination of a contract does not involve a termination fee, if the electrical production from biogas ceases permanently in order to:

1. inject biomethane into the natural gas grid or to a remote injection point;
2. use biomethane as an alternative fuel;
3. use biogas to produce heat.

This applies to all BG16 contracts and some BG11 contracts. The regulator CRE had earlier, on 24 July 2025, issued an opinion (No. 2025-201) on the draft amendment to the terms of compensation for terminating such contracts.

The accompanying package

In the same week other acts on biogas were published: the arrêté of 5 September 2025 on biogas production certificates (CPB), defining the consumption categories used to calculate the obligation of gas suppliers, and the arrêté of 3 September 2025 on inspections of installations injecting biomethane. Together they indicate the direction: support is shifting from electricity to gas.

Significance

By the end of the second quarter of 2023, 854 digestion installations with a capacity of 301 MW were connected to the grid; the average purchase tariff in their group in 2022 was 186.4 EUR/MWh (see the CRE opinion on BG16 indexation). The 2025 decision closes entry to this scheme for new projects, but existing contracts continue. We write about the second path, biomethane, in the entry Biomethane in France: the tariff model.