Speaking to letsrecycle.com, Peter Prior has said he ‘would not be surprised’ if a number of anaerobic digestion plants were decommissioned in the near future due to lack of feedstock.
The criticism comes after Mr Prior warned of renewable energy ‘policy chaos’ at the opening of Andigestion’s new £10 million AD facility in Cheltenham earlier this month (see letsrecycle.com story).
The 32,000 tonnes-per-year capacity plant, which is based on the Wing Farm waste site in Bishop’s Cleeve, has seen a £10 million cash investment by Andigestion, a subsidiary of Mr Prior’s family business Summerleaze. The facility will source food waste under its long-term contract with Gloucestershire county council.
Mr Prior told letsrecycle.com that AD plants should only be commissioned if and when there is an increase in the available feedstock. He added that a feedstock ‘famine’ combined with failing gate fees are a threat to both existing plants and new developments.
Ban
He said: ““The Green Investment Bank is misguided. Personally I doubt all the AD plants that have been built are going to be viable. I would like to see a ban on food waste going landfill and then there would be a case to build more AD plants, but it’s unlikely that will happen in England. The Chancellor is unlikely to encumber local authorities with higher costs at this time.”
Since opening in 2012, GIB has invested extensively in waste projects – with £200 million injected into the industry in the first two years. The investment has primarily been used to fund energy from waste and anaerobic digestion facilities, including the Greenlight AD project and the Willen Biogas plant in Enfield (see letsrecycle.com story).
Asked whether he was concerned that his own plants would be impacted by a decrease in feedstock, Mr Prior referred to the firm’s long-term contract with Gloucestershire and the fact that lower cost plants can afford low gate fees. He added there was a case for AD operators to do more to aid local authorities in food waste collections.
He added: “We are collecting food waste from schools in Gloucestershire and we would like to do the same in Devon. The problem is in rural areas the cost of haulage would be high and there would be an impact on CO2 emissions.”
‘Pleading’
Mr Prior was also keen to expand on the ‘renewable energy policy chaos’ calling for an end to ‘special pleading’ from the industry. He added the government’s recent announcement to cut red tape for businesses would ‘help massively’.
He said: “There are about 52 different support levels for renewable energy, which is very complex and it creates barriers. For instance, it is problematic to obtain RHI for heat wasted from AD plants using CHP. As a country, we need to make renewable support simpler and give the taxpayer a better bang for their buck. We need to concentrate support on the cheaper renewable technologies and there should be one-off grants for the more expensive demonstration projects.”
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