The UKs food waste recycling capability is set to significantly increase after two anaerobic digestion plants took major steps forward this week.
Green energy company BiogenGreenfinch announced today (April 25) that it has been named as the preferred bidder for a contract to build a 22,500 tonne per year capacity AD plant in Denbigshire, North Wales.
Meanwhile, Oxfordshire-based organic waste company Agrivert has begun construction of a 50,000 tonne per year capacity plant in Wallingford after successfully securing funding for the facility.
The facility will service Agriverts contract to treat food waste for the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead as well as a number of commercial clients and is scheduled to start accepting waste before the end of 2012.
Once operational, it will produce up to 2.4MW of power. Agrivert said it had already identified markets for the digestate bi-product, much of which will be used in the local area.
Agrivert already runs an AD plant at Cassington and the Ardley in-vessel composting (IVC) facility, both in Oxfordshire.
BiogenGreenfinch
In Denbighshire, Biogengreenfinch isthe favourite to build an AD plant to treat food waste on behalf of the North Wales consortium of Denbighshire, Conwy and Flintshire councils. The company will be responsible for designing, building and operating the facility at Waen, St Asaph.
Plans for the facility are subject to planning approval, but BiogenGreenfinch is confident that work will be underway by the end of 2012. Once operational, the plant will be able to produce power for around 1,500 homes.
The plant will be the companys second in North Wales, after it was chosen as preferred bidder to develop and operate an AD facility for Gwynedd council in March 2012 (see letsrecycle.com story).
Richard Barker, chief executive of BiogenGreenfinch, said: We are delighted to have been awarded this long term contract by the North Wales Consortium to build and operate the Waen, St Asaph AD plant. We look forward to working with the consortium to expand our AD infrastructure further in Wales and to working with our funding partners Iona to deliver this ground breaking project.
Denbighshire county council head of environmental services, Steve Parker, said: We are delighted to make this announcement. Our new AD facility will be good for the environment, because it will generate electricity from the food waste that people have thrown away. BiogenGreenfinch has a proven track record in delivering AD facilities.
It is interesting to look back and see how what is now Biogen has developed.
It is true that Biogen has now sold its plants to an investment company, and some have suggested that as several anaerobic digestion companies have done this recently that the “magic of biogas” was waning.
Looking around I see no evidence of that. All I see is refinancing taking place which is the sign of a healthy industry with players which seek to move forward and use their money in new projects.
The gate fees for food waste have certainly fallen, but that was to be expected as more food waste capacity came on-stream.
We wrote recently on the future prospects for AD here: https://anaerobic-digestion.com/anaerobic-digestion-plants-opportunity/