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A farm near Ardstraw in Northern Ireland is converting organic matter into biogas to provide sustainable heat and power on-site, as well as for local homes and businesses.
The 700-acre Greenhill farm biogas plant plant is only the second such plant in Northern Ireland. It works by ‘cooking’ animal waste from 600 cows at 40°C to produce methane gas.
The gas is then piped into two engines that drive generators to produce electricity. Hot water is also produced and is used to dry the plant’s residual, as well to pasteurise milk.
According to Alfagy, which supplied the biogas CHP, it has an energy efficiency of 86%, and represents a significant step toward in achieving an energy sustainable Northern Ireland.
The plant produces 430 kWh of power, which is sufficient to supply around 430 homes.
After the process of extracting methane from the manure and vegetation, farmers use the residual waste as a fertiliser to grow animal feed.
Alfagy says the project faced challenges in attracting funding from banks during the financial crisis.
“It is astonishing that more financial support isn’t directed at biogas power plants as they create eight times more value than other renewable technologies such as wind turbines,” says Peter Kindt, Alfagy’s chairman.
With car maker Audi pioneering e-gas research to soon have methane-powered cars on the roads, an International Energy Agency (IEA) conference on renewable gas will see experts from across Europe converge in Cork, Ireland, next week to discuss the country's potential to inject renewable gas into the gas grid through the conversion of biogas into biomethane, or to use it as a source of renewable transport fuel.
Germany's Audi is investing heavily in research to pioneer technology to introduce methane-powered cars from 2013 onwards, making the e-gas from energy derived from North Sea wind farms.
So, from Ireland's perspective, next week's International Energy Agency conference, Energy from Biogas, will take place at University College Cork (UCC) on 15 September to look into the country's capacity to really push the biogas sector here, creating new green jobs in the process, while also contributing to a cleaner gas grid overall.
Biogas, also termed biomethane or renewable gas, is a versatile energy vector with applications in electricity, heat and transport, according to Dr Jerry D Murphy, a lecturer in Transportation & PI in Bioenergy at the Environmental Research Institute (ERI) at UCC, who is chairing next week's event.
"In Germany, on average, each week a new facility comes online injecting renewable gas into the gas grid; the potential for Ireland with our feed stocks and our modern gas grid is very significant," he said.
At the conference, presentations will be given from top academics in the renewable gas field, including Prof Charles Banks of the Bio-Energy Research Group at the School of Civil Engineering and the Environment, University of Southampton; Jukka Rintala, professor of bioprocess engineering, Tampere University, Finland; Prof Bernd Linke, ATB Potsdam, Germany; and Simon Zielonka, University of Hohenheim, Germany.
Murphy said the main aims of the conference would be to highlight successful facilities with different feedstocks and to highlight the advantages of upgrading biogas to biomethane for either injection to the gas grid or use as a source of renewable transport fuel.
Speakers at the event will also examine the potential of, and barriers to, use of digestate as a fertiliser, as well as giving details of ongoing biogas research happening around Europe.
Anaerobic digestion itself and the production of biogas is a technology with applications in biofuels, waste treatment, renewable energy and sustainable agriculture. Germany has been taking the lead on anaerobic digestion, with Murphy pointing to how the country has more commercial facilities than any other country, with 6,000 digesters at the end of 2010.
In stark contrast, Ireland just has four anaerobic digestors up and running, with 50 planned for both North and South of the island.
Dr Jerry Murphy, principal investigator in Bioenergy at the Environmental Research Institute, University College Cork
Murphy said Ireland has an array of opportunities if it embraces anaerobic digestion. For instance, he said it would bring benefits through reduced energy importation, reduced carbon fines, helping the environment and facilitating organic waste treatment.
"It would also provide rural employment to operate the digesters and help re-employ the construction workforce in building digesters," said Murphy.
The conference will be hosted by the ERI and funded by the IEA and the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland.
Crop digestionBiomethane and grid InjectionDigestion of food waste in the UKThe Swedish experience of gas upgrading, gas injection and transport fuel useGreen gas: the Dutch experienceExperience with gas grid injectionInterpretation of the animal byproducts regulations in IrelandUtilisation of digestate as biofertiliserQuality assurance of digestate in SwitzerlandBiogas research in FinlandEffect of organic loading rate on biogas yield from animal slurry and biogas cropsBiogas research in the ERI, UCCBiogas research in Teagasc, Grange, Ireland.
Pactitioners who will speak at the event will include Anneli Petersson of the Swedish Gas Centre, Sweden; Nathalie Bachmann, EREP SA, Switzerland; and John Baldwin, CNG Services, UK.
Meanwhile, policy makers David Baxter of the Clean Energies Unit, European Commission Joint Research Centre; Mathieu Dumont, Secretariat Working Group on Green Gas, The Netherlands; and Melanie Farrar, DAFF, Ireland, will also speak at the conference.
