Anaerobic Digestion: 10 Ways to Make Money from Biogas

#AnaerobicDigestion: 10 Ways to Make Money from #Biogas https://anaerobic-digestion-news.blogspot.co.uk/2017/01/ways-to-make-money-from-biogas-plants.html #renewableenergy 

Did our Video Raise Your Interest in AD? If so carry on reading what others are saying about it, below:

Background Info on Anaerobic Digestion

The anaerobic digestion process provides at least 10 ways to make money from Biogas Plant, that's why it is such an amazing asset to the owners and operators of biogas plants. Once a farmer, for example, gets his or her own biogas plant up and running they soon realise that a digester is so much more than just a producer of renewable energy.

Generating heat and power from food waste and other organic waste is now well established. The principal is very simple. Waste is put in to a container without any oxygen and the microbes (bacteria) consume (eat) the waste which in turn produce methane gas. This is a natural process that goes on in peat bogs which is why methane is also known as marsh gas. The methane gas can be used to heat homes and other buildings, or even be sold to Butlins to heat their swimming pool. Alternatively the gas could be burned to drive a generator and produce electricity.

What better way to make money than to invest in a process which uses something that's normally thrown away?

Digester technology is a growing industry in a greener UK.'Recycle and re-use' is the mantra of environmentalists so it makes perfect sense that waste water and biodegradeable material can be processed into energy and fertiliser.

Anaerobic digestion needs to be on a certain scale in order to work; an individual cannot have a mini digestor in their back garden to create renewable energy. The sector is still in its infancy although more AD plants are on the way so the only way a private investor can invest in an AD plant is through a fund.

"It is an elegant and efficient way to access this sector, doing your bit for the environment whilst also looking forward to some healthy returns," Gudgin says.

via Americanbiogascouncil

What happens to food scraps after the city takes them? Soon a large fraction will wind up on Long Island, where Charles Vigliotti hopes to turn them into profit.

On an overcast winter morning, Charles Vigliotti, chief executive of American Organic Energy, drove me to his 62-acre lot in rural Yaphank, N.Y., 60 miles east of Manhattan, to show me his vision of the future of alternative energy.

He snaked his company Jeep around tall piles of wood chips, sandy loam and dead leaves. Then, with a sudden turn, we shot up the side of a 30-foot bluff of soil.

At the top, we gazed down upon those many piles and breathed in the mildly sulfurous exhalations of a nearby dump.

Vigliotti radiated enthusiasm.

Within the next several months, he expected to break ground — “right there,” he said, thrusting his index finger toward a two-acre clearing — on a massive $50 million anaerobic digester, a high-tech plant that would transform into clean energy a rich reserve that until recently has gone largely untapped: food waste. via  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anaerobic_digestion

ADBA is the trade association for the anaerobic digestion (AD) industry in the UK and companies and organisations working on novel technologies and processes that compliment the anaerobic digestion process and products. With our members we promote the economic and environmental benefits of AD in the UK.

Anaerobic digestion is the simple, natural breakdown of organic matter into biogas (carbon dioxide and methane) and organic fertiliser called digestate. It is a similar process to that which takes place in the stomach of a cow. via www.all-energy.co.uk

Anaerobic digesters are a mature, proven technology. They take sludge, manure, and other organic waste materials and produce methane (natural gas) fuel.

Nobody questions their technological capabilities. However, the question remains as to their economic benefits. In terms of dollars and cents, how much economic sense do anaerobic digesters make?

What are the economic benefits of an anaerobic digester fuel system? Under what scenarios do they make sense, and under what scenarios are they of only marginal benefit—or should not be considered at all?

As a source of renewable energy, how is this energy applied?

Can anaerobic digesters be used economically to provide grid-ready electrical power, or should they only be used to provide fuel for local, niche applications?  via www.greenbiz.com

Many US wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) are beginning to use anaerobic digesters to produce biogas that can be used in their combined heat and power plants to generate electricity and heat. In addition, the plants are selling the biogas into the gas grid. The growing interest in biogas has led to more attention paid to measuring biogas flow and composition, because proper gas engine operations depends upon use of biogas with the right methane (CH4) content. New ultrasonic technology, including the OPTISONIC 7300, developed by KROHNE, Inc., is being developed to provide the kind of reliable and accurate flow measurement needed to advance this important strategic energy source.

Over the past decade the U.S. has been taking a page out of Europe’s playbook by adding a spate of anaerobic digestion facilities to produce biogas, which can be can be recovered, treated, and used to generate energy in place of traditional fossil fuels. [1] Anaerobic digestion systems are used in a variety of settings, including wastewater treatment, food waste processing, and agricultural (manure) processing. via www.pmgroup-global.com

10 Ways to Make Money from Biogas Plants

The anaerobic digestion process provides at least 10 ways to make money from Biogas Plant, that's why it is such an amazing asset to the owners and operators of biogas plants. Once a farmer, for example, gets his or her own biogas plant up and running they soon realise that a digester is so much more than just a producer of renewable energy.

There is a great danger that in this age of decarbonisation progress, the humble AD process is being overlooked by many who seek to reduce their carbon footprint, and that it fails to get the publicity it deserves.

That's why we compiled a list of them, published the video provided below, and wrote this article.

 

Each of the following different income streams provided below, can contribute to the economics of individual digester projects, including farm digesters.

Some income methods apply to all digester installations, while others are a matter of choice, or determined by the size or location, of the farm. Some may not be possible for certain waste types, and as this list is for the United Kingdom, some of these income streams may not be available in your country. The ways in which financial benefit is possible, fall essentially into two categories.

Income Created from the By-products of Anaerobic Digestion

First, there are the savings or direct income created by the by-products, including:
1) savings, on the cost of artificial fertilisers for the farm itself, when a farm uses its own digestate as a fertiliser on their own land
2) sales of digested materials, for use as fertiliser, by other nearby farms
3) sale of fibre or finished compost, either through a regional marketing organisation, or by distribution locally
4) savings in on-farm energy costs, through the use of gas for heating and cooking
5) the sale of electricity, or biogas, either locally or through the national grids, and
6) the sale of spare heat, from CHP units for use in heating buildings or greenhouses, for example.

Income Created from Payments and Subsidies for Reducing Environmental Problems

Second, there are payments and subsidies, of one kind or another, for reducing environmental problems which affect the whole community. These payments could include:
1) gate fees for processing other organic wastes, such as source-separated domestic food waste or garden waste or possibly sludge from small sewage works
2) incentives for producing renewable energy, either through the Renewable Heat Initiative or Feed-in-Tariffs, (also known as FiTs), for electricity generation, and
3) payments for overall reductions in greenhouse gas emissions
4) sometimes there may even be payments made by governments to encourage farmers to use anaerobic digestion as a way to reduce the burden of farmyard contamination on local watercourses, in areas of intensive dairy farming.

Anaerobic Digestion Cleans Up Bathing Beaches

In the early 2000s there were even AD project grants given to some farmers close to bathing beaches in Scotland’s Solway Firth, so that biogas plants were built in an area where dairy farmyard, summer storm-water slurry run-off, was jeopardising the tourist industry.
 On those local beaches, EU bathing beach water quality in the period after after heavy summer storms, was significantly improved, by installing anaerobic digestion plants. 

Our conclusion is that: 

Establishing effective ways of using all the by-products of a biogas plant, and marketing them in the best manner for maximised income, can raise the income from biogas plants substantially.

A number of forms of government funding (subsidies) are available to help ensure a robust economic viability for not only farm biogas plants, but also community biogas projects, and municipal waste-collection authority involvement in the industry.

Governments have been subsidising biogas production, but generally they need to focus the provision of this money more directly on the environmental benefits of each AD Facility.

By doing that, the contribution of public funds can be best used, to help encourage use of the biogas process in ways which meet the needs of small, as well as larger farms.

In particular, it is important to bring together as many as possible of these income streams, for each anaerobic digestion plant.

Good News for Anaerobic Digestion

The good news is that, if this is done, many more farmers, on many more farms, should be able to find it possible to profitably install many more biogas digesters.

Thank you for watching our video presentation (above), and reading this article, we hope you found it useful. You may like to also watch our video on how to raise biogas yield, as another way to improve the income from existing anaerobic digestion plants. via Anaerobic-digestion.com/make-money-from-farm-biogas-plants/