Biogas Energy Security: How Biogas Can Strengthen India’s Energy Independence

Biogas Energy Security Latest News

• Continued tensions in West Asia keep global energy markets on edge, exposing India’s vulnerability given its heavy dependence on crude oil imports. 
• This has renewed focus on compressed biogas (CBG) as an alternative fuel, and despite years of policy push, progress in India’s biogas sector remains limited, prompting calls for stronger government support and incentives.

India’s Energy Vulnerability

• India imports nearly 85% of its crude oil needs, much of it from West Asia, and supplies were disrupted during the Israel-US-Iran war. 
• Although the government has diversified crude oil suppliers, around 90% of India’s LPG imports still transit through the Strait of Hormuz, making any regional instability a direct risk to India’s energy security.

‹ ›

Understanding Biogas and Its Potential

• Biogas is a mixture of methane, CO2, and trace gases produced through anaerobic digestion of organic matter. 
• When processed and compressed, it becomes Compressed Biogas (CBG), chemically identical to CNG. 
  • CBG is renewable, carbon-neutral, produced from waste, and usable for electricity generation, heating, or cooking. 
• India has pursued biogas blending for over a decade to reduce fuel imports, manage agricultural waste, and support rural incomes.

Policy Push and Ground Reality

• SATAT (2018): The Sustainable Alternative Towards Affordable Transportation initiative aimed to establish 5,000 CBG plants by 2023. Only 132 plants were completed as of June 3, 2026.
• GOBARdhan Scheme: Launched to boost CBG production under a “waste to wealth” model, offering grants up to ₹50 lakh per district for community biogas plants. ₹564 crore was earmarked for biomass collection machinery and ₹994 crore for pipelines connecting biogas plants to the gas grid.
• Challenges: Poor infrastructure, weak private investment, difficulty accessing formal credit, and high upfront technology costs have stalled progress. Financial support, accelerated depreciation, and tax holidays could help attract private players.

Global Lessons: The Cultivation Trap

• Biogas development remains uneven globally, with Europe, China, and the US accounting for 90% of world production. 
• Germany, a leader in Europe, incentivised biogas through its 2000 Renewable Energy Sources Act, guaranteeing producer income and encouraging small-scale plants. 
• However, this triggered a “corn mania,” with maize cultivation replacing food crops due to high profitability, forcing the government to later cap maize use in biogas plants.

India Faces a Similar Risk

• The Economic Survey 2026 noted a sharp rise in maize cultivation, potentially threatening crop diversity and food security. 
• Maize yields rose from about 2.56 tonnes/hectare (FY16) to 3.78 tonnes/hectare (FY25), while yields of soybean, sunflower, rapeseed, peanuts, and millets stagnated or declined. 
• This is linked to India’s administered ethanol pricing system, where maize-based ethanol commands a higher price than rice- or molasses-based ethanol. 
• Between FY22 and FY25, maize-based ethanol prices grew at a CAGR of 11.7%, making maize increasingly attractive to farmers, while pulses output declined and oilseeds/cereals saw only modest growth. 
• This shift is visible in states like Maharashtra and Karnataka, where maize competes with pulses, oilseeds, soyabean, millets, and cotton for land and resources, potentially deepening India’s import dependence on pulses and edible oils.

Denmark Offers an Alternative Model

• Denmark, which is targeting to use only biomethane in its gas system by 2030, offers a solution. 
• The government discouraged the use of crops as feedstock, and the primary source is livestock manure and agricultural waste.

Government’s Action Plan

• In 2023, the National Biofuels Coordination Committee approved a mandatory CBG blending obligation for gas distributors, starting at 1% in FY26 and rising to 5% by FY29.
• Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced in her February 2024 Budget speech that phased CBG blending in CNG (transport) and Piped Natural Gas (domestic use) will be mandated.
• As per government data (August 2025), only 36 medium-sized biogas plants were installed under the MNRE’s Biogas Programme over three years.
• The comparison being drawn is with India’s ethanol blending success: from just 1.5% blending in 2014 to 20% by December 2025, achieving the target five years ahead of the original 2030 deadline, raising the question of whether similar momentum can be replicated for CBG.

Conclusion

• Biogas holds genuine promise for India’s energy security, but replicating the ethanol success story will require overcoming infrastructure gaps, ensuring adequate incentives, and learning from Germany’s cultivation-pattern mistakes by prioritising waste-based feedstock over food crops to safeguard both energy and food security.

Source: TH | ANI