Sugarcane biogas reaches the market in scale. Earlier this month, Raízen, a joint venture between Shell and Cosan, was released by Aneel to start the commercial operation of three electric power turbines from a plant located at its Bonfim Plant, in Guariba (SP).

What draws attention is that all of this electric energy has biogas as its raw material produced from vinasse and cake, residues from the industrial process of the sugar cane plant.

The generating plant belongs to Raízen and Geo Energética and will supply electricity to the federal government in a contract expired in a 25-year public auction.

In turn, the Usina Bonfim plant is already a case because it is the first in the world to win a public auction with electricity from sugarcane biogas and its residues. The plant's installed capacity is 21 megawatts (MW).

For its part, Geo already operates a biogas plant next to the sugarcane plant of the Coopcana cooperative in the interior of Paraná.

“The plant at Coopcana started with a technological demonstration unit for the digestion of cake, vinasse and cane straw”, reports Energia que Fala com Você Alessandro Gardemann, director of Geo.

According to him, the plant is in the expansion phase and by the end of this year it should reach a capacity of 10 MW.

In addition to the Coopcana and Raízen mills, the next to debut in the commercial production of sugarcane biogas is the Cocal mill, also in the interior of São Paulo, from 2021.

In the case of Cocal, the biogas will be transformed into biomethane, which has the same characteristics as natural gas and will be distributed by GasBrasiliano.

The difference is that while natural gas has fossil - and pollutant - oil as its raw material, biogas is renewable and comes from sugarcane, which sequester pollutant carbon gas in its growth phase.

The project is highlighted in an interview by Alex Gasparetto, CEO of GasBrasiliano, to Energia Que Fala Com Você. The interview is below.