Biogas Time for the UK to step on the gas Bioenergy International No 81, 5-2015 27 Held annually in the beginning of July in Birmingham, the two-day UK AD & Biogas event has bubbled up to become a must-attend rendez-vous for anyone involved in the UK biogas and allied sector. there’s a lot to take in. Organised annually by the Anaerobic Digestion and Bioresources Association (ADBA) the event set-up with a trade show integrated with open seminars, R&D hub, and professional advice centre all inside the one hall, attracted around 250 exhibitors and over 3 500 visitors. According to ADBA’s new Market Report, released during the event, 2014 saw unprecedented growth with 80 biogas plants and 22 biomethane plants commissioned. This brings the total number of operational plants, i.e. including the water sector in the UK, to 372 biogas plants and 33 biomethane to grid plants. It may not sound like much compared to Germany but since the first UK AD & Biogas trade show five years ago the industry, outside of the water sector, has quintupled. – Across all AD’s sectors the industry now has a combined electrical equivalent capacity (electricity and biomethane) of almost 480 MW – equivalent to the capacity of one of the UK’s nuclear power plants, Wylfa, being decommissioned this year, said Charlotte Morton, Chief Executive, ADBA during her “state-of-the-sector” address. The 2014 commissioning rush is, in part, to beat declining Feed-in Tariff (FiT) and Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) rates. A significant drop in sub-500 kWe FiT plants is expected in 2015 and uncertainty ligers around new biomethane plants after April 2016, while the industry waits for a decision on future funding for the RHI. – Now is the time to step on the gas. With a favourable outcome from key policy decisions that need to be taken by the new government, ADBA’s market forecast estimates that industry could reach 500 plants by the end of the year and then potentially more than double by 2020, said Morton. Morton also gave an update on how the industry is complying with the new Voluntary Guidelines on Best Practice for Crop Feedstocks in Anaerobic Digestion launched last year. With bioenergy sustainability criteria due to be implemented for RHI plants in October, the industry will be subject to stringent requirements to demonstrate carbon savings. The guidance was developed by ADBA together with the National Farmers Union (NFU), Renewable Energy Association (REA), Country Land and Business Association (CLA) and National Non-Food Crops Centre (NNFCC). It has support by the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (Defra) at ministerial level and the department takes a keen interest in how the industry is using the document. – Farming for any purpose also needs to consider how to grow crops in a way that benefits the local environment, and feedstocks for AD are no exception. Crops are an important feedstock for anaerobic digestion, providing one of the best forms of bioenergy and they offer farmers an additional crop for their rotations, reduce input costs and improve sustainability. And we should keep the size of these operations in context: crops for AD use a tiny proportion of the UK’s agricultural land, said Morton. After recent industry expansion, around 45 000 hectares – only about 0.3 percent of UK agricultural land – will be used for crop feedstock this year. ADBA’s medium-term projection for growth forecasts that number will expand to 0.4 percent by 2020 – less than half the proportion of arable land that was not used at all in 2014. Returning to ”Brum” the next edition of UK AD & Biogas is slated for 6-7 July 2016. Text & photos: Alan Sherrard BI81/4947/AS Winfrid Rauch CEO for Manufacture à Besançon (MaB) an innovative French company specialised in developing “simple and robust” moving floor type dryers for biomass, RDF and biogas digestate applications. First time exhibitors Swedish company Cellwood Machinery AB, Gith Cedulf (left) Marketing Manager and Henrik Lefvert CEO, presented their innvoative dissolving and separation pre-treatment technology for biogas plants.
Bioenergy no 5 September 2015
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