Challenges of Decentralized Energy Production: Technical and Environmental Evaluation of Biogas Utilization Pathways for Medium-Scale Farms

Medium-scale farms using anaerobic digestion must choose among different biogas utilization pathways, each with distinct technical and environmental implications. This study develops an integrated assessment framework that combines Aspen Plus process simulations with life cycle assessment in openLCA to evaluate these pathways under consistent assumptions. The framework’s innovation lies in directly linking technical performance metrics with environmental impact results, enabling transparent and comparable pathway analysis. Results show that while biological methanation provides the highest energy efficiency, on-site CHP performs best environmentally, highlighting a trade-off between efficiency and sustainability. Overall, the study offers a robust decision-support tool for selecting optimal farm-scale biogas valorization routes and is well aligned with system-level analysis under the specified conference subtopic