TotalEnergies’ BioBéarn biogas unit commences operation in France

Last month, TotalEnergies commissioned the BioBéarn biogas production unit in Mourenx in the south-west of France. The facility has an annual production capacity of 160 gigawatt hours (GWh).
BioBéarn has been built on a 7-hectare former brownfield site in the center of the Lacq basin and represents TotalEnergies' 18^th biogas production unit in France.
The unit will be capable of converting 220,000 tons of organic waste every year from local farming activities and the agri-food industry.
As of January this year, the unit has been feeding its biomethane into the natural gas transmission network operated by Teréga.
It will gradually be scaled up to produce up to 160 GWh at 100% capacity, which is equivalent to the average annual consumption of 32,000 inhabitants.
By avoiding the emission of 32,000 tons of CO₂ per year, BioBéarn is also enabling the Lacq basin, a historical gas area, to achieve local and sustainable growth.
As part of a Biomethane Purchase Agreement signed in June 2023, BioBéarn will supply Saint-Gobain France with 100 GWh of biomethane over a three-year period starting in 2024.
The unit is supplied with organic waste from 90 local suppliers within an average radius of 40 kilometers of the site.
The unit's integration into the landscape has been designed in liaison with the Lacq joint local authority.
The almost 200,000 tons of digestate (residues from the anaerobic digestion process) produced each year by BioBéarn will be sprayed on farmland within a 50-kilometre radius of the unit.
The use of this natural, hygienised fertiliser will reduce the need for chemical fertilizer by almost 5,000 tons.
"This new production unit builds on TotalEnergies' commitment to promote biogas, a clean gas that will strengthen the country's energy sovereignty and the development of the circular economy," commented Olivier Guerrini, biogas business unit at TotalEnergies.
"This project will allow TotalEnergies to increase its production capacity in France to 700 GWh and heralds a new step towards its objective of reaching 20 TWh by 2030 globally."