Is UK Biogas Plant Development Matching Growth Expectations?

Now that we are approaching the end of 2012 we thought it would be interesting to briefly analyse the progress in anaerobic digestion in the UK (UK biogas plant growth) since the summer by reminding ourselves of what was said at the Anaerobic Digestion & Biogas Association (ADBA) in June, and how the AD industry has been progressing during the 6 months since.

In June Lord Redesdale, who chairs the Anaerobic Digestion & Biogas Association (ADBA), said that the anaerobic digestion and biogas market could witness an:

"incredible" eightfold increase in renewable energy generation by 2020."

This was provided that the UK government provided the right support (and this is still debatable given that support rate on some incentives are still in consultation), the potential for a growth explosion, was huge.

It is also worth repeating that, at that time Lord Redesdale also made the point that:

"It is incredible that with only 78 plants built outside of the water industry, the UK AD industry is already delivering over four times more electricity than solar PV." 

AND, we have not seen anywhere that the solar PV industry has refuted this assertion.

UK Biogas Plant Growth - the Continuing Expansion

So, the AD market is potentially a big growth area, and we are now able to report that the another batch of treatment infrastructure projects is now well on its way to getting the green light for a large number of anaerobic digestion/ renewable energy plants across the UK.

The largest project to move forward this month seems to be Peel Environmental's £145m energy recovery centre for residual waste in South Clyde. We understand that he development has been granted planning permission by Glasgow City Council.

The facility will be designed to generate up to 20MW of electricity which will be exported to the grid, 55% of which will be renewable.

Just prior to that West Dunbartonshire Council issued consent for a recycling centre at Rothesay Dock, Clydebank. This site will have an anaerobic digestion (AD) Plant as part of a facility for sorting mixed recyclables.

In another development the organic waste treatment specialist contractor HotRot Organic Solutions projects has advanced plans to expand in the UK, through a new commercial partnership between itself and Bio Watt Engineering which will focus on modern composting technologies. Under the agreement HotRot will seek to extend its in-vessel composting operations throughout the UK and Eire.

But, HotRot is not just into composting, and is also working in collaboration with biogas developer agri.capital to develop 50MW of AD capacity in the UK.

There is yet more AD growth to report as Wyke Farms (said to be the UK's largest independent cheese producer and milk processor), is planning to build a digester near its farms in Bruton, Somerset.