The Bioenergy Association of Ukraine (BAU) has revised its assessment of the potential for biomethane production, taking into account the possibility of using cover crops for this purpose, and these volumes could reach 20 billion cubic meters per year, the head of the association Heorhiy Heletukha has said.

"From now on, we consider it right to focus on the potential of biomethane production not at 9.7 billion cubic meters, as previously thought, but at about 20 billion cubic meters. Previously, we did not consider the possibility of using so-called cover crops for producing biomethane," he said at a press conference at Interfax-Ukraine on Friday.

The bio-energetic expert explained that cover crops (or sustainable rye) are crops sown between harvest and new crops specifically for sustainable purposes, not to mature for using it as feedstock for food production.

As Heletukha said, to increase the production of biomethane, it is enough to sow cover crops on 20% of the territory of Ukraine, which will not create competition with food production.

According to him, the potential of using cover crops is taken into account, for example, by Germany and France, so that they declare their biomethane potential at the level of 20 billion cubic meters.

According to the head of the BAU, the production of biomethane is a chance for Ukraine to develop decarbonized, renewable energy.