Flint MI Anaerobic Digestion Plant Brings Best Swedish Biogas Systems to the US

This is the view of Swedish Biogas, who despite stating that an estimated $4 million of funding was still needed for the second phase of the Flint Biogas Plant, the company says that its is confident that this money will be secured by the end of July this year.

That means that the residents of Flint will eventually benefit from a projected net saving to the cityies fund, from the plant of more than $1 million a year.

This is a highly forward thinking project, so we have added an excerpt from their news release below. Please visit the original site by clicking on the link provided below the excerpt:

“What we want to do is bring private financing to the city through Swedish Biogas and, in return, the city will use the savings to pay off the loan and the assets will eventually become the city’s and we’ll share in the operation and savings in the plant,” said Thomas Guise, chief executive officer of Swedish Biogas International LLC.

Guise couldn’t comment on the details of where the investment is coming from, stating they had hoped the funds would have been secured in December.

The lagging economy has made financing a challenge, but Swedish Swedish Biogas International International and the city have a model to show there is a profit, he said.

“Our goal is to have our corporate headquarters and our lab here and then not only have the plant make money, but importantly, we want to have a demonstration plant,” he said. “We need to have a U.S. model. If you had to see a plant when we first got here, you had to go to Sweden.”

The first phase broke ground in 2010. It was up and running the following year.

The city of Flint started saving about $200,000 annually because the plant resulted in a 30 percent reduction in the sludge burned in its incinerator, he said.

The second phase will provide an electrical source for the city’s wastewater treatment facility and, eventually, take its vehicle fleets off diesel, Guise said.

“The original idea was to have a demonstration plant," he said. "It does save money, but I like to tell people it’s sort of an interim step.

“What we want to do is this incremental expansion.”

The first phase takes 100 percent of the sludge from the city’s wastewater treatment plant to a large container called a digester. The sludge is then continually stirred at 100 degrees Fahrenheit.

The gas created by the sludge breaking down is separated from the remaining waste, which is burned off by the city’s incinerator.

The gas is used to power a boiler, which heats the digester to keep the microbes that break down the waste at the right temperature.

The city saves money on operating its incinerator because it is no longer burning 100 percent of its sludge.

The second phase will include a food waste receiving station and dosing tank, possibly operating a second digester, building an electrical station for the wastewater treatment plant and taking the incinerator offline.

The waste that would have been burned off in the incinerator is instead composted for various uses, including the recovery of brownfield sites or ground cover.

The additional fuel generated by adding food waste is used to power the electric station for the wastewater treatment facility.

It has yet to be determined if the second digester will be used in the second phase.

“It kind of depends on the financing,” Guise said. “We may just do the north with some food waste, or do both. It just costs more. But we are definitely going to put in electrical generation.”

The second phase is projected to be completed in the summer of 2013.

Taking the city’s vehicle fleet off of diesel is would start in 2014, which is if everything goes as planned, Guise said.

“We figure we could probably power 20 to 25 vehicles,” he said. “It’s the equivalent of 150,000 gallons a year of diesel. And then that has pretty good economics at $4 a gallon.”

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New Renewable Energy Regulations in Germany Make Biogas Funding Less Attractive

A new German renewables law will create new biogas funding hurdles, however, the effect will only effect certain biogas plant sizes and types, and shouold be seen against a strong biogas market in the country. In the long-term delivering value to the taxpayer is essential and hopefully these measures will help do that. here is the original press release/ article:

Germany's amended renewable energy sources law (EEG 2012), which came into force in January, is unlikely to provide a significant boost to biogas capacity because stricter rules have made it more difficult to fund investment, the German Biogas Association told Platts.

The association represents around 4,600 members including biogas producers, plant makers, as well as agricultural and industrial biogas plant operators.

"In general, feed-in tariffs are lower than in the past, and some provisions make it more difficult to obtain credit," association spokeswoman Andrea Horbelt said. "We assume that a lower number of plants will be built because of stricter conditions which hamper rather than promote capacity expansion."

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However, the impact of the changes varies within the biogas sector and the new rules were influenced by the federal government's change in energy policy last year, which entailed green energy a prominent role in the future energy mix.

From 2012, biogas plant operators have to meet certain criteria to qualify for feed-in fees that are fixed for a 20-year period. Feed-in tariffs are usually well above the market price and the difference is passed on to end- consumers in form of a surcharge, although energy-intensive users are exempt.

Certain plant operators, for instance, will forfeit the feed-in fee if they fail to prove that at least 60% of heat from a block-unit power station has actually been used. This creates uncertainty and makes banks reluctant to provide loans, Horbelt said. Under the previous system, which was more complicated but more generous, biogas companies were certain of receiving a fixed feed-in fee and could claim various extra bonuses for meeting additional criteria.

Medium-sized biogas plant projects are likely to be those most affected by the combined effect of lower feed-in fees and tighter eligibility criteria, Horbelt said.

By contrast, higher feed-in fees for small plants with a capacity of up to 75 KW could encourage growth in this sector which so far attracted little investment because costs per installed KW are generally higher than for larger plants, Horbelt said. Fees in this segment have risen to 25 euro cents/KWh (32 US cents/KWh) from around 22 euro cents/KWh.

Operators of large plants of 750 KW and over will also see a rise in fees, though future business will very much depend on feeds into gas networks after biogas has been treated to adjust its methane content to that of natural gas.

"We expect that capacity will be added [in this area],? Horbelt said.

But owners of new large plants which will be connected to the grid from 2014 onward will face an additional challenge: They will have to market biogas directly to power traders and receive revenues at exchange-based, market prices instead of feed-in fees. The government will, however, compensate them for the difference between the fixed feed-in tariff and the market price.

"The system is more complicated and carries more risk," the spokeswoman said. "The [old] EEG was tried and tested; it created a functioning market system, and there is the risk that the [spirit of the] EEG is being eroded, that this will lead to a development away from the EEG and the investment certainty it previously offered."

Existing plant operators still qualify for fixed feed-in tariffs but can opt to shift to the market premium-based model -- a move that would only be lucrative if market prices were to rise to above the fixed feed-in tariff.

In 2011, the use of biogas for power production expanded by around 21% year-on-year to 17.5 TWh, according to preliminary data from the Working Group on Renewable Energies (AGEE). A further 16.5 TWh was used for heat production.

The government plans to boost biogas-based injections into the national gas grid to 6 billion cubic meters/year by 2020 and to 10 Bcm/year by 2030. By the end of 2010, grid injections from 44 biogas plants amounted to nearly 270 million cu m, based on data by the grid regulator BNetzA, which last summer forecast biogas feeds in 2011 would reach 436 million cu m.

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Anaerobic Digestion Plant Opens at Langage Farm, Devon, UK

Posted on July 2, 2011 by David

Devon dairy launches anaerobic digestion facility to fuel clotted cream production

Lord Henley and Gary Jones from Langage Farm

A Devonshire dairy has officially opened a £3.4m anaerobic digestion (AD) facility that will turn food waste from around the county into the energy that will help produce its clotted cream, ice cream crème fraiche and yoghurt.

The facility at Langage Farm, Plymouth, received £1.2m of funding from the Anaerobic Digestion Demonstration Programme and was opened by Lord Henley, Minister for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, on Friday 1 July.

By the end of its first year of operation, the AD facility will process 12,000 tonnes of food waste collected from households across the county by local authorities. The facility will also process on-farm dairy wastes, converting these fuels into renewable heat and electricity.

The renewable energy will not only power the dairy products production, but also export surplus energy to the National Grid. In its first five years, the Langage AD facility expects to produce 20,000 MW of energy saving the equivalent of 2,000  tonnes of CO2 per annum on energy bills.

Lord Henley, Gary Jones, Gary Streeter MP, Marcus Gover and James Harvey

Lord Henley said: “The facility at Langage Farm is an excellent working example of how a localised closed loop economy can be created. Food waste that otherwise would have gone to landfill will instead be used to produce the energy that will power much of the production process here on the farm, helping to produce award winning clotted cream, ice cream and yoghurt.”

Marcus Gover, Director of Organics and Energy from Waste at WRAP, believes the market, including investors, developers and end users, should be confident of AD as a reliable, safe and profitable resource efficiency process.

“AD is a growing part of the resource efficiency solution, capable of diverting biodegradable waste from landfill, creating renewable energy, stimulating the green economy and improving the sustainability of commercial agriculture. We really see it as a huge opportunity for the UK.”

A spokesperson for Langage Farm said: “We are proud to be a part of the solution to local waste problems and hope to see an increase in the uptake of this technology in the future, it really makes sense to use waste as a resource in this way.”