The existence of microorganisms is the central prerequisite for the digestion. This fact was found out by Louis Pasteur in the year 1855. However, a look into the past shows, that the unconscious use of microorganisms had already started around 3000 B.C. The Egyptians leavened bread with sourdough. Furthermore, the Sumerer and Babylonians fermentered juice to alkoholic drinks and produced beer. In the year 1810, Gay-Lussac formulated the equation for the alcoholic fermentation.

Pasteurs discovery introduced the age of the use of microorganisms in technological systems of the fermentation industry. The word fermentation was shaped. The first communal biological sewage plants were erected in big cities such as Berlin, Munich and Paris around the years of 1900. 

In the year 1922, Germany began to use biogas by implementing the knowledge about microbial development of methane into a technological scale.

The consequence was the development of fermentation towers for sewage treatment plants. Until 1937, numerous cities have converted their car fleets for biogas operations. In the early 50s, the biogas production had one but short prime time in the agricultural sector in Germany. At that time, around 20 biogas production plants were in operation on farms with more than 40 cows. When the fuel oil was offered cheaply in the mid 50s, the biogas plants fell into oblivion. 

Only the oil crises in the 70s called the attention to the biogas technology again. In 1983, approximately 15 companies led the production of biogas plants in their production programme. This led to an operation of more than 100 plants in Germany. Since the beginning of the 1930s, a continuous tradition of the biogas production in the fermentation towers of sewage treatment plants has shown a sophisticated technical state in this branch, so that nowadays a lot of sewage treatment plants mainly gain the energy for the process in this way. But the number of the agricultural plants has steadily risen.

Nowadays electricity and heat generated from biogas makes an important share in the German energy mix. At the end of the year 2007 more than 3,700 biogas plants with a capacity of 1.300 were installed. The share of electricity from biogas added up to 8,9% of the whole production in Germany in 2007.