News - May 1, 2026

Interview with Martin Schlerka, CEO & Managing Partner at Biogest.

 

Biogest targets Ireland’s biomethane opportunity

Ireland combines strong agricultural resources with a now clearly articulated national ambition for biomethane,’ he says. ‘The publication of the National Biomethane Strategy gives the sector much-needed direction on sustainability, demand creation and enabling policy.’ Biogest has 40 projects in the UK and more than 200 plants worldwide and Schlerka sees Ireland as a natural extension of that agricultural AD footprint, but one that required the right local partner to unlock. That partner is Local Power, an Irish renewable energy developer with a track record of hundreds of projects across the country over the past decade. The two companies have announced a strategic partnership to advance agricultural biomethane projects across Ireland, with the Curragh Biogas plant in Carnaross, Co. Meath, as the first joint project. The rationale for the partnership is straightforward. ‘Local Power contributes on-the-ground development capability — from site identification and stakeholder engagement to navigating planning, permitting and grid processes,’ Schlerka says. ‘That local fluency shortens timelines, reduces execution risk and complements Biogest’s technology, EPC and operations expertise.’ What Biogest brings to Ireland on its own is significant; what it cannot replicate quickly is the kind of institutional knowledge that comes from hundreds of completed Irish projects.

 

The Curragh plant

Curragh Biogas is designed to produce 599 Nm³/h of biomethane from a feedstock mix of poultry, cattle and pig slurry alongside grass, maize and rye silage. Once operational, it is expected to reduce annual emissions by an estimated 25,000 tonnes of CO2 equivalent. The plant is described as ready-to-build, with a typical construction and commissioning window of 12 to 18 months once on-site works commence, subject to final procurement, grid scheduling and any policy-linked milestones. The facility will deploy Biogest’s proprietary PowerRing technology, which Schlerka describes as specifically engineered for the processing demands of agricultural feedstocks. ‘PowerRing is designed for high process stability and efficient mixing with fibrous, variable agricultural feedstocks,’ he says. ‘Its geometry and flow dynamics help optimise retention time, gas yield and operational reliability.’ The technology has been deployed across the majority of Biogest’s global plant portfolio and Schlerka argues its tolerance for variability is a key advantage at Curragh, where the multi-substrate mix presents meaningful operational complexity. Managing a diverse feedstock combination of multiple slurry types alongside several silage crops requires careful control of dry matter content, fibre levels, nutrient balance and biological inhibitors. Biogest’s approach combines the PowerRing digester design with process control systems and upstream logistics expertise to maintain consistent feedstock quality and stable carbon-to-nitrogen ratios. ‘This integrated model is exactly why we are comfortable with Curragh’s substrate portfolio,’ Schlerka says.

 

Policy: direction without execution certainty

Schlerka is positive about the direction of Irish biomethane policy, but measured about where the sector actually stands. The national strategy exists; the targets are set. What the market now needs is implementation.‘The next step is finalising and operationalising measures like the Renewable Heat Obligation to create predictable long-term offtake, streamlining planning and environmental consenting and completing the grid connection policy to accelerate injection capacity,’ he says. ‘The framework exists. The sector now needs timelines, instruments and execution certainty so developers, farmers and financiers can commit capital with confidence.’ Projects of this scale require debt and lenders need visibility on revenue over a horizon long enough to service it. Without that, even technically mature, ready-to-build projects can stall. Schlerka’s framing is consistent with what developers and investors across the European biomethane sector have said repeatedly: policy intent is necessary but not sufficient.

 

A farmer-inclusive model

A recurring theme in Biogest’s positioning in Ireland is what Schlerka describes as a farmer-inclusive approach to biomethane development. This is a broader model of participation and benefit sharing that he argues is essential to the viability of an agri-led industry. ‘Farmer inclusive means farmers are central to the feedstock supply and to benefit-sharing,’ he says. In practice, that includes secure, long-term slurry and silage supply contracts, opportunities for co-investment or revenue participation where appropriate and the return of digestate to land as a nutrientrich alternative to synthetic fertiliser. That last element is increasingly material: as fertiliser costs remain elevated and sustainability requirements tighten, the agronomic value of digestate is a key part of the economics for participating farms. The model also aligns with the stated intent of Ireland’s national strategy, which frames biomethane as an agriled industry rather than an industrial energy project that happens to use agricultural waste. Whether that framing holds in practice will depend partly on how policy instruments like the RHO are structured. Specifically, whether they incentivise domestic, farm-based supply chains or simply reward the lowest-cost biomethane regardless of origin.

 

Scaling the pipeline

Beyond Curragh, Schlerka is deliberately circumspect about specific project numbers. Biogest and Local Power are actively assessing a broader Irish pipeline, guided by policy progress and grid readiness, with the objective of scaling a portfolio over the next three to five years in line with the 2030 target pathway. The scale of the opportunity is not in question. Ireland’s agricultural sector, with its density of livestock, the availability of slurry and silage feedstocks, the relative proximity of farms to grid infrastructure in many regions, makes it one of the more credible markets in Europe for agri-led biomethane at scale. What has historically held it back is not resource availability, but policy lag and the absence of proven delivery partnerships. Biogest’s entry, structured around a joint venture with an established local developer rather than a standalone push, suggests a measured approach to a market that has promised much and, until recently, delivered little. Whether Curragh becomes the first in a substantial Irish portfolio will depend less on Biogest’s technology than on whether the policy instruments Schlerka is waiting for arrive on a timeline that keeps the pipeline moving.