Union of Producers and Employers of the Biogas and Biomethane Industry (UPEBBI) was established in 2012. We are an employers’ association operating under the Employers’ Organizations Act, and we enjoy all the benefits associated with this special status. We bring together enterprises primarily engaged in operating, as well as designing, building, and servicing biogas plants and biomethanation plants, as well as entities from the business environment (engaged, for example, in energy trading, EU subsidies, or installation insurance).
The abbreviation UPEBBI (being an abbreviation of the English name Union of Producers and Employers of Biogas and Biomethane Industry) means, in other words, TOGETHER FOR BIOGAS. Therefore, we undertake joint efforts so that the agricultural, sewage, and waste biogas and biomethane sector has ever better conditions for development. Our goal is to work together for the sake of the biogas and biomethane industry in the country, as well as in Europe and worldwide (as a participant of the European Biogas Association, World Biogas Association, and Biomethane Industrial Partnership). Within the framework of the EU Erasmus+ programme, we undertake international cooperation, e.g., with analogous organizations from the Czech Republic and Latvia in the project “Training of Personnel for the European Biogas Sector.”
The overriding aim of UPEBBI is to provide members with comprehensive assistance and legal protection as well as to shape a unified stance on all matters related to their business activities. We are the largest industry organization animating the Biogas and Biomethane Agreement, which consists of six entities representing the vast majority of the sector. We work regularly with lawyers, experts, scientists, officials, and industry practitioners in order to optimize the effects of our activities.
We collaborate with scientific and research institutions (universities, academies, and state research institutes) to develop innovative technological solutions that contribute to a more dynamic development of the industry in Poland and around the world. Together with the University of Life Sciences in Lublin, the Institute of Biotechnology of the Agri-Food Industry, and Agricultural Training Centres, we create Industry Skill Centres in the field of bioenergy (in the Lublin region and in Pomerania) designed for the education of students, teachers, and adults.
We conduct educational and promotional activities in order to raise the public’s knowledge about the possibilities of producing and using biogas as a renewable source of energy and biomethane as a gaseous fuel, for instance by conducting workshops for hundreds of people nationwide (potential investors, employees of local government units, and students of agricultural schools) commissioned by the National Agricultural Support Centre or by training employees of the Provincial Fund for Environmental Protection and Water Management in Białystok.
We have repeatedly and successfully intervened at the stage of drafting laws and regulations concerning the biogas sector. We maintain working contacts with the Ministry of Climate and Environment (divisions of renewable energy sources and waste management) and the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (division of energy transformation in rural areas), as well as with the National Fund for Environmental Protection and Water Management and the Institute of Environmental Protection. We regularly take part in legislative and consultative works at the level of the Sejm and the Senate, participating in committee and team meetings and engaging in discussions with particularly interested MPs and senators.
We participate in social consultations and provide information about biogas and biomethane to all those interested in this topic. We promote biogas technology in conventional and social media as well as at all events, conferences, and trade fairs related to renewable energy sources (e.g., at the Economic Forum in Karpacz, the European Economic Congress in Katowice, the Distributed Energy Congress in Kraków, the Poznań Economic Congress in Poznań, the Eco Forum in Supraśl and Tykocin, EuroPower and OZEPower in Warsaw, or during the Central Agricultural Fair at Warsaw Ptak Expo).
We organize Green Gas Poland [https://greengaspoland.pl/] as an annual international conference of the biogas and biomethane industry, which over five editions has attracted hundreds of participants: representatives of private companies and the State Treasury, state offices and governmental agencies, energy and biogas media, as well as scientists, investors, farmers, and local government officials.
