Rules & carbon

Sustainable Alternative Towards Affordable Transportation, launched on 1 October 2018 by the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas, is the scheme under which oil marketing companies invite entrepreneurs to set up CBG plants and guarantee offtake. Its headline aim was 5,000 CBG plants.

Galvanizing Organic Bio-Agro Resources Dhan began in 2018 as a Swachh Bharat waste-to-energy programme. It was consolidated by Cabinet approval on 6 August 2026 into a National Circular Bioenergy Scheme under MoPNG, with a 23,731 crore rupee outlay aimed at a near ten-fold rise in CBG output.

It is the National Unified Scheme for Compressed Biogas, approved on 6 August 2026 with a 23,731 crore rupee outlay running FY2026-27 to FY2035-36, consolidating the CBG ecosystem under one ministry. It bundles assured offtake, an administered price, capital assistance, pipeline connectivity and credit support into a single decade-long framework.

As of 6 August 2026 the GOBARdhan portal recorded 1,908 registered CBG and Bio-CNG plants, of which 217 were commissioned - producing 0.4 MMSCMD - with 339 under construction. Registered and commissioned are very different numbers and must never be conflated.

SATAT's original aspiration was 5,000 CBG plants. Actual commissioned plants - 217 as of mid-2026 - remain a small fraction of it, so it is a target rather than achieved capacity, and should be modelled against commissioning trends rather than quoted as a fleet size.

MoPNG is the nodal ministry for offtake and pricing through SATAT, synchronisation and now GOBARdhan; the OMCs and GAIL buy; PNGRB regulates injection and pipeline quality; MNRE runs capital subsidy under the National Bioenergy Programme; BIS sets IS 16087; the Department of Fertilizers handles MDA and the FCO; PPAC is the central repository body for the blending obligation; and IFGE and the Indian Biogas Association carry industry advocacy.

MNRE Central Financial Assistance under the National Bioenergy Programme; the Biomass Aggregation Machinery scheme at 50% grant capped around 90 lakh rupees, on a 564.75 crore outlay; the Development of Pipeline Infrastructure scheme at 994.5 crore; Market Development Assistance of 1,500 rupees per tonne for organic manure; and RBI Priority Sector Lending status, notified 4 September 2020.

Under the National Bioenergy Programme, a new CBG plant is eligible for 4 crore rupees per 4,800 kg/day of capacity - 3 crore per 4,800 kg/day for upgrading an existing biogas plant - capped at 10 crore per project, with standalone biogas generation at 0.25 crore per 12,000 cubic metres a day. Under the 2026 GOBARdhan scheme, capital assistance is set at up to 2 crore rupees per TPD.

By 16 March 2026 the Biomass Aggregation Machinery scheme had approved 37 proposals involving nearly 248 crore rupees of its 564.75 crore outlay, and the Development of Pipeline Infrastructure scheme had sanctioned 56.31 crore of its 994.5 crore. Uptake was still early relative to the money allocated.

Assured CBG offtake; a stable administered price of 2,110 rupees per MMBTU; capital assistance up to 2 crore rupees per TPD; pipeline infrastructure support; a credit-guarantee mechanism covering up to 85% of eligible MSME loans; and a CBG Ecosystem Challenge Fund.

PNGRB regulates injection of CBG into natural-gas pipelines and CGD networks. In February 2026 it released guidelines for CBG injection requiring compliance with IS 16087:2025 plus the network's Wobbe and dew-point specifications, so a producer injecting into a pipeline must meet PNGRB rules on top of the BIS standard.

The Indian Biogas Association, the Indian Federation of Green Energy and allied bodies advocate on pricing and policy and sit on MoPNG committees alongside PPAC, GAIL and IOCL that review the procurement price. They were part of the committee whose work produced the 80% to 85% pricing revision.

Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh are among the most active, driven by sugar - press mud and spent wash - paddy straw and dairy feedstocks, and several carry dedicated CBG or bioenergy policies. Reported commissioned counts put Uttar Pradesh around 40, Gujarat around 25 and Maharashtra around 24, but state counts move frequently and should be checked against the live portal.

Several states run dedicated CBG or renewable-energy policies with real incentives - Maharashtra's CBG Policy 2026 allocates 500 crore rupees with viability gap funding up to 75 lakh per TPD capped at 15 crore per project, plus a 2.5% SGST refund; Gujarat offers interest subsidy and capital support; Punjab subsidises feedstock transport; Madhya Pradesh offers electricity-duty exemption, 50% stamp-duty reimbursement and concessional land.

Kalaburagi in North Karnataka has no trunk gas pipeline, is served by AG&P Pratham / THINK Gas for city gas, and combines coal, furnace-oil and LPG-based industry with strong agriculture - it is Karnataka's tur bowl at roughly 40% of state production - plus KMF dairy. That mix favours cascade delivery and industrial thermal offtake over pipeline injection.

Karnataka administers renewable energy largely through KREDL and its Renewable Energy Policy 2022-27, without a dedicated bioenergy agency. Its Industrial Policy 2025-30 offers extra incentives - up to 5% for extremely backward regions and 3% for backward regions - which covers Kalyana Karnataka and Kalaburagi. Land is accessed by lease.

Ethanol blending is the more mature programme, with a longer policy runway and established offtake, whereas CBG's mandatory blending obligation only began in FY2025-26. They compete for some feedstocks and for policy attention, and CBG's demand-guarantee design borrows directly from what ethanol proved.

Dedicating land to energy crops such as Napier raises food-versus-fuel and land-use concerns, so policy leans toward wastes, residues and marginal land - even the EU's 35 bcm target drew criticism for thin feedstock evidence. India's framing, and Reliance's use of barren land for Napier, reflects that sensitivity; land is leased rather than owned.

It signals a decade-long, consolidated commitment with offtake, price, capital aid and pipeline support under one ministry, which reduces the multi-scheme fragmentation that used to raise project risk. But an outlay is a framework, not a guarantee for any single plant - feedstock and execution still bind.

They are policy ambitions, not committed capacity. With 217 plants commissioned against a 5,000-plant target the delta is enormous, and closing it depends on feedstock, financing and execution rather than on the target being restated. Model against commissioning trends.

A high LOI count with few commissioned plants points at permitting, feedstock or financing bottlenecks rather than at a demand shortfall - so it should prompt diligence into why local plants stalled. The national ratio of 108 commissioned against 1,094 LOIs is the template for that analysis.

Yes, and the main benefit is not the fuel switch - it is avoiding methane that manure and organic waste would otherwise release, on top of displacing fossil gas or diesel. Because methane is a potent greenhouse gas, capturing it is where most of the value sits. Plant-level claims should still be measured and verified rather than assumed.

Avoidance credits represent emissions prevented against a baseline - methane not released, fossil fuel not burned. Removal credits represent carbon durably taken out of the atmosphere, such as biochar. They are different asset classes, they price roughly 10-20 times apart, and they must never be added together.

Manure and waste-based biomethane can reach very low or negative carbon intensities - dairy-manure pathways are cited around minus 250 to minus 300 gCO2e/MJ under California's LCFS, against a fossil comparator of 82.87 gCO2e/MJ there and 94 under RED II. Food-waste and wastewater pathways sit higher at roughly 20-40 gCO2e/MJ, and crop-based pathways higher still.

Methane's global warming potential is about 28-30 over 100 years but roughly 80 over 20 years, so near-term accounting makes methane avoidance look far more valuable than long-term accounting does. Manure-based pathways show the largest gap between the two, which means the chosen horizon materially changes the claim being made.

The relevant counterfactuals are open manure storage, which emits methane; stubble and residue burning, which causes air pollution and CO2; and landfilling of organic waste. The avoided-emissions credit reflects what would have happened without the project, and RED II specifically credits manure for the methane avoided from open storage.

The Carbon Credit Trading Scheme, under the Energy Conservation (Amendment) Act 2022, has a compliance mechanism and a voluntary offset mechanism, where one Carbon Credit Certificate equals one tonne of CO2e reduced, removed or avoided. Offset projects must have started on or after 1 January 2025 and must be additional.

Biogas sits within the offset mechanism's Phase-I sectors covering energy, agriculture and waste, and by early 2026 nine methodologies had been notified with more than 40 entities registered across biogas, hydrogen and forestry. The framework draws on CDM, Gold Standard and Verra methodologies adapted for India; Verra's VM0044 covers biochar as a separate removal stream.

If the same tonne of avoided emissions is claimed both as a carbon credit and toward a compliance or blending obligation, it has been counted twice - and CCTS explicitly guards against that. For international sale, Article 6 corresponding adjustments are what prevent the same tonne being counted in two countries.

Robust baselines, metering of gas and feedstock, monitoring against an approved plan, and independent verification by an accredited agency, all recorded in a registry. This is why the mass balance and the telemetry are prerequisites for carbon revenue rather than nice-to-haves.

EU market access under RED II and III, and ISCC certification, require documented GHG savings, feedstock traceability and sustainability criteria. Producers targeting export value have to build MRV to those standards from the outset - retrofitting traceability onto an operating supply chain is far harder than designing it in.

Yes. IEA and WBA work reports fugitive methane across feedstock handling at 0.1-2.4%, biogas production at 0-12%, and upgrading slip at 0.05-2% depending on technology. Unmanaged, that can materially erode the net benefit the whole carbon claim rests on.

Biochar carbon-removal credits under Verra VM0044 traded around USD 125-170 per tonne CO2e in 2025-26 - S&P Global spot near 150, Puro.earth around 125-145, Sylvera's 2025 average about 164 - while AD methane-avoidance credits traded far lower, with traditional avoidance credits as low as USD 5-15. Removals command roughly a 10-20 times premium and are a separate stream.

Biochar is a durable carbon-removal product with its own methodology in Verra VM0044, its own permanence profile and its own buyers, whereas CBG's credit is methane avoidance. Combining them misrepresents the climate claim and risks invalidating both, so they are accounted and marketed separately.

Unlike manure and waste pathways, there is no robust peer-reviewed life-cycle assessment of Napier-based CBG in Indian conditions. Existing work is largely lab and pilot yield studies, so the carbon intensity of a Napier-fed plant - accounting for cultivation, fertiliser, water and land use - is genuinely uncertain and should be stated as such.

Reduced stubble-burning air pollution, rural employment and nutrient recycling through digestate are credible, but should be stated qualitatively unless separately quantified. The water footprint of irrigated energy crops is the countervailing item and should be disclosed alongside them.

As upside, not as a base-case pillar. Voluntary avoidance credit prices are volatile and often below USD 10, MRV costs real money, and eligibility and additionality both carry risk. The core revenue remains CBG plus FOM, with carbon as a contingent add-on.

Yes - Europe, and especially Germany and Denmark, has a mature biomethane sector. The IEA's 2025 Outlook for Biogas and Biomethane puts today's sustainable production potential for biogases at nearly 1,000 bcme, equivalent to a quarter of global natural gas demand.

Under REPowerEU the EU targets 35 bcm - about 350 TWh - of annual biomethane production by 2030, against roughly 3 bcm produced today, backed by an estimated 37 billion euro investment need. It is an ambition comparable in scale, and in evidence gap, to India's CBG push.

Thai farmers have cultivated Napier for over 30 years, with more than 130 varieties, giving a real-world evidence base for Napier-based biogas that India's young sector simply does not have. Their experience underlines variety selection, harvest-age discipline and multi-season yield data as the things that decide outcomes.

The IEA assesses a large untapped potential for biogas and biomethane globally, with India among the countries where sustainable feedstock could support substantial production. The recurring theme across every market it covers is the gap between assessed potential and realised output.

Denmark built cooperative, mostly agricultural biogas plants - about 180 by 2020 - and shifted them to grid-injected biomethane. Per IEA Bioenergy Task 37, in 2022 biomethane was almost 40% of total Danish gas consumption, and the government's objective is 100% green gas consumption by 2030.

Germany's biomethane boom ran on energy-crop - largely maize - incentives from 2009, then the EEG was reformed in 2014: bonuses cut, new biogas-power capped at 100 MW a year, and the energy-crop substrate bonus ended. In the first year after the new law only 150 new biogas plants were completed. The lesson is that energy-crop-heavy models carry policy and land risk as well as agronomic risk.

The United States drives renewable natural gas through market-based credits rather than a fixed tariff: California's LCFS assigns credits by carbon intensity - dairy-manure RNG can score around minus 250 gCO2e/MJ - and federal RINs operate under the Renewable Fuel Standard. Project economics there are a carbon-price story, not a procurement-price story.

The GGSS is a tariff-based support scheme for biomethane injected into the grid, funded by a levy on gas suppliers - a subsidy model distinct from both India's administered procurement price and the US credit markets. Current tariff details should be checked against the scheme documentation before being quoted.

Brazil digests vinasse - the stillage left from sugarcane ethanol - integrating energy recovery with its large ethanol industry. It is the direct analogue of India's spent-wash and press-mud opportunity at sugar mills, and it demonstrates the value of captive, co-located feedstock over aggregated supply.

Liquefied biomethane, or bio-LNG, can decarbonise shipping, and manure-based bio-LNG can achieve well-to-tank values below minus 100 gCO2e/MJ under RED III, helping vessels meet emissions thresholds. It is a high-value but capital-intensive niche.

The IEA's 2025 outlook sees demand roughly tripling in India. Earlier IEA analysis found that biomethane could cost-effectively meet 10% of India's natural gas demand today, rising to almost two thirds by 2040, with India's biomethane potential around 35 bcm by 2040 in its sustainable scenario.

India's roughly 217 commissioned CBG plants and 0.4 MMSCMD of output are small against the EU's biomethane base and its 35 bcm target, which frames CBG as an early-stage growth sector with large headroom rather than a mature one. The headroom and the delivery risk are the same fact.

Stable, long-horizon offtake and pricing plus residue and waste feedstocks - rather than land-competing energy crops - underpin durable growth. Both the EU's 35 bcm target and India's 5,000-plant target show that volume ambitions outrun feedstock and execution unless backed by evidence; abrupt subsidy change in Germany and over-reliance on local CHP demand in early Denmark each stalled growth in their turn.