On September the 27^th, the RIGel excursion team organized a trip to Schmack Biogas GmbH at Schwandorf. This company is part of the Viessmann Group and one of the leading German supplier companies in biogas plants. Schmack Biogas has been setting the standard for efficient biogas plants, on which farmers as well as energy companies rely. Actually the company has installed over 250 plants worldwide with a total capacity of over 100MW.

After arrival the 9 PhD students were introduced to the company with a focus on MicrobeEnergy, which is the R&E division of Schmack by a short presentation. Here, new projects, e.g. power-to-gas conversion or bioleaching, a process to recycle phosphor, were shown. Afterwards the RIGeL students visited the large biogas plant with a total capacity of 10MW. The trip continued with the research laboratories of the company, where the students had a look on several products and concepts. At the end of the trip there was a short discussion about future prospects of biogas and renewable energy sources in general which was very interesting.

The organizing team would like to thank the Schmack Biogas GmbH for the opportunity of a visitation. We also want to thank Kinga Ay for organizing the bus transfer from Regensburg to Schwandorf.