Getting up close and personal with anaerobic digestion

nextgen – the largest and most established event for the UK Bioenergy market – recently set up tours of anaerobic digestion plants in Oxfordshire.

Visitors from across the country were given a unique opportunity to visit the AD plant sites, ahead of the Nextgen conference and exhibition which takes place on  October 9 and 10 at Stoneleigh Park, Warwickshire.

The visit provided delegates with fascinating insight into how these bioenergy facilities function on a day-to-day basis, with site owners on hand to explain how the plants were developed from the initial planning stages, right through to implementation.

Industry experts including Anna Becvar, Director at Earthcare Technical Ltd, kicked started the day by delivering seminars on relevant industry topics. Two site visits then commenced.  The first site visit was to Agrivert’s AD facility, a site designed to treat municipal food waste to generate a power output of 2.1 MW. The second plant by JJ Power was remarkably different; featuring a self-built project on a small farm, which uses existing farm waste such as pig slurry to produce its energy.

Event Director for nextgen, Chris Down, said: “It is clear there is public appetite to find out more about this relatively unknown technology. Visits to high profile plant sites provide a rare opportunity for people to fully understand how these facilities work and grasp the incredible benefits they offer to reduce the carbon footprint.”

There is still a relatively small number of operating AD plants in the UK, but this number is growing rapidly and according to the Anaerobic Digestion and Biogas Association (ADBA), it will continue to grow at around 30% per year.