China’s Biogas Industry’s Sustainable Transition to a Low-Carbon Plan—A Socio-Technical Perspective

Abstract

China’s biogas industry has experienced ups and downs over the past two decades, with various challenges pointing to misplaced expectations that biogas technology is overly focused on energy production. With the promotion of China’s low-carbon strategy, a more rational and sustainable transformation strategy is crucial for the development of the biogas industry. To elucidate the sustainable development process of the biogas industry, this study applies the socio-technical transition theory and the strategic niche management (SNM) approach to understand the multi-regime interactions of biogas systems and their possible future paths. At present, the Chinese biogas industry needs to abandon the expectation of energy recovery and establish the expectation of multi-functional combination, especially including nutrient cycling. This study proposes a sustainable transformation path for the biogas industry and predicts three phases based on the type of socio-technological transformation path: a transformation path to 2030 to promote niche innovation and develop core technologies; a reconfiguration path from 2030 to 2050, which will require a lot of trials and errors; and the expansion of market share in 2050 through technology replacement. This study highlights the importance of niche experimentations and broad advocacy coalitions for the biogas industry. This research also illustrates how the transformation of China’s biogas industry can be achieved through incremental innovation with consistent policy support.