On November the 21th the RIGel excursion team organized a trip to Schmack Biogas GmbH at Schwandorf, which is part of the Viessmann Group and one of the leading German supplier company in biogas plants. The company 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 20 PhD students were introduced to the company by a short presentation which focused on the central aspects of the company. Then the RIGeL students visited the large biogas plant with a total capacity of 10MW. The trip continued by visiting the research laboratories of the company. 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 Susanne Oswald for organizing the bus transfer from Regensburg to Schwandorf.