Renewable Gas Act in Austria: Austropapier sounds the alarm

The IV rejects the current draft of the EGG. The EGG would lead to considerable additional costs for an industry under massive pressure - artificial price fixing would interfere with the free market and natural gas, which currently costs around € 36-40 per MWh, would be replaced by gas that costs at least € 125 per MWh.

Kurt Maier, Austropapier Executive Committee, President of IV-Steiermark, demands: "Self-generated biogas utilised on site must be credited without the need for feed-in. The diversions via a gas grid leads to conversion and transport losses and must not be enforced by quota obligations." "The EGG means additional gas costs of up to 30 per cent for our sites. In intra-group competition, even small differences in energy costs can make the difference between a profitable site and one that is shut down."

Austropapier energy spokesman Enzo Zadra also warned of further burdens: "The Austrian paper industry produces significantly more biogas than required by law, but the gas suppliers are not allowed to take credit for the quantities produced. We are being penalised for the fact that our biogas is being put to a more efficient and higher-quality use and not being fed into the gas grid with conversion and transport losses," explains Zadra and calculates: "Our members have to pay up to 30 percent higher costs for gas so that inefficiently and expensively produced biogas from other producers is mixed with natural gas, even though our locations, as pioneers of the bioeconomy, already exceed the quota from their own production."