SUBLIME Energie has inaugurated its Charlie demonstrator in Plélo, Brittany, introducing a system designed to liquefy biogas directly on the farm. The company says the installation is the first of its kind and allows anaerobic digestion sites to produce transportable renewable fuel without relying on gas-grid injection infrastructure.
The process increases the energy density of raw biogas on site, allowing it to be collected and moved to centralised hubs for purification and commercialisation. At those hubs, the liquefied gas is separated into bioLNG and liquid bioCO2 using cryogenic distillation. SUBLIME says this approach allows farms with lower production volumes or remote locations to participate in renewable gas production without the cost and complexity of connection to the gas network.
The Charlie demonstrator has been installed at the Gazéa farm in Côtes-d’Armor and is expected to process biogas produced on site into around 180 tonnes of bioLNG and 330 tonnes of liquid bioCO2 per year once commissioning and testing are complete. Initial production is due to begin this year.
Bruno Adhémar, founder and CEO of SUBLIME Energie, said: “With Charlie, we demonstrate that it is possible to overcome the historical limitations of anaerobic digestion. By liquefying biogas directly on the farm, we enable an off-grid model capable of unlocking large-scale value from a fragmented agricultural resource.”
The company says the model also creates a route forward for existing cogeneration-based digestion plants nearing the end of their contracts, allowing them to continue producing value from biogas without major new upgrading infrastructure. In addition to supplying bioLNG for heavy-duty transport and other hard-to-electrify uses, the liquid bioCO2 stream can be used in agricultural and industrial applications that currently depend on fossil-derived CO2.
SUBLIME is now preparing its first commercial-scale project, Delta, which is expected to connect around ten farms to a shared processing hub in Côtes-d’Armor by 2028. More details are available via SUBLIME Energie’s technology page.
