Economic viability and risk of agricultural biogas production in Russia

Biogas production is a popular technology, which allows to produce electricity, heat and biofertilizers of high quality. Biogas production allows not only to produce and use green energy substituting fossil energy sources, but also to solve numerous economic, ecological and social problems. In contrast, the biogas production industry has not yet been developed in Russia so far. Russia has an extensive legislation regulating renewable energy production. However, renewable energy, with the exception of hydropower, is almost not generated in the country due to the widespread use of fossil fuels. On the other side, the interest of farmers and municipalities can be stimulated by several ways. First, the biogas production analysis can demonstrate that agriculture has a high potential for biogas production in the regions. Second, the biogas project evaluation can show the high profitability of the AD project on a typical Russian farm. Third, the risk analysis of the biogas project can reveal and prevent risks connected to the realization of biogas projects making them attractive to potential investors. All of these goals can be achieved by applying such tools as biogas potential estimation, whole farm modeling, static modeling, dynamic modeling, simulation modeling, linear programing modeling, project evaluation methods, sensitivity analysis, Monte Carlo simulation and Scenario analysis. The dissertation is composed of three parts that focus on biogas potential estimation of a Russian region and its municipalities, biogas project evaluation for a Russian farm within static modeling and risk analysis of the biogas project designed for a Russian farm by dynamic modeling.