Mansfield-based AD and biogas-to-energy company Monsal said it had completed the first phase of planning and pre-design for the plant, which is expected to produce heat and electricity from a combination of locally-sourced business food waste and potato waste produced by Fenmarc, a food packaging and processing company operating adjacent to the site.
In granting permission, Cambridgeshire county council set a condition that Local Generation must submit six-monthly reports providing a summary of the sources of the waste, in the hope that in future the site will gather material from within Cambridgeshire, Peterborough and a 45km radius. The council would then assess the situation and see if it is feasible for Local Generation to import waste within that radius.
As well as generating renewable energy from biogas, the food waste, which currently goes to landfill, will be processed to provide 12,000 tonnes a year of high grade compost. Monsal expects construction to start in 2010 once permits are in place.
Aidan Cumiskey, managing director of Monsal said: “The plant can treat a large variety of biowaste streams including kitchen and household food waste and convert them to renewable energy. This is our first major success with the food sector and we expect continued uptake as a “greening” of the UK food industry supply chain takes place in the coming years.”
Local Generation is a subsidiary of holding company Lifecrown Investments, which also owns Fenmarc. It called the plant the “largest planned in the region” and said it intends to sell the heat and power produced to local homes and businesses, including Fenmarc.
Local Generation director Nick Waterman said: “The UK Government wants businesses like ours to invest and create new jobs in green technologies as well as deliver sustainable solutions and that is exactly what we are going to do. We hope that people in March, Fenland and Cambridgeshire will be very proud to have one of the first AD plants in the UK operating in the region.”
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