Third AD plant awarded PAS110 certification
25 January 2012
Staffordshire-based Lower Reule Bioenergy has become the third anaerobic digestion plant in the UK to be awarded PAS110 certification for its digestate, as well the second to achieve compliance with the AD Quality Protocol.
The approval was awarded on December 22 2011 under the Biofertiliser Certification Scheme (BCS), which is operated by Renewable Energy Assurance Ltd, a company set up by the Renewable Energy Association.
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- Lower Reule Bioenergy's AD plant is the third UK facility to achieve the PAS110 certification
The PAS110 was published in February 2010 (see letsrecycle.com story) with the aim of assuring companies using the digestate that the product is of a consistent quality and fit for purpose.
The AD Quality Protocol defines the criteria which outputs from anaerobic digestion plants have to meet in order to be defined as a product rather than a waste (see letsrecycle.com story).
Lower Reule Bioenergy managing director Helen Franklin said: “We are extremely proud of our achievements. Our digestate is now recognised as a quality ‘product’ that will provide our customers with the confidence that it can provide a valuable source of nutrients and a good replacement for expensive inorganic soil improvers. It also means that our customers will be able to use the digestate without any costly permits or licenses from the Environment Agency.”
Gnosall
The Staffordshire plant, operated on farmland in Gnosall, is capable of handling up to 30,000 tonnes-a-year of waste which it received from contracts with local authorities and businesses. The company is also in the early stages of planning an expansion to install two more digesters which will increase its capacity to almost 60,000 tonnes-a-year.
Currently the plant generates up to 1.3 megawatts of renewable electricity which is fed directly into the National Grid.
The facility receives approximately 50% of its waste from contracts with Newcastle-under-Lyme borough council and Wolverhampton city council, with the remainder being provided by supermarkets, food manufacturers and the hospitality sector.
The AD plant is backed by the Waste and Resource Action Programme (WRAP) which in September 2009 granted Lower Reule Bioenergy £750,000 in funding (see letsrecycle.com story).
The digestate produced is sold to local farmers with about 40% of it going to LRB‘s sister company, Lower Reule Farm.
AnDigestion
The first AD plant to awarded the PAS110 certification and AD Quality Protocol compliance was Devon-based AnDigestion in March 2011 (see letsrecycle.com story) which received the standard for digestate produced at its Holsworthy AD plant in West Devon.
In August 2011, the second plant in the UK, and the first in Scotland, to achieve PAS100 certification was Scottish Water Horizons for its Deerdykes AD facility in Cumbernauld. The facility also achieved Additional Scheme Rules for Scotland certification, as the AD Quality Protocol does not cover Scotland.
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