The UK’s first anaerobic digestion plant has been successfully completed at a brewery to help use local food waste to generate energy for the beer-making facility.
In a groundbreaking collaboration between British Gas and Adnams Bio Energy Limited, the facility will use waste to create gas to be used on the National Grid and as vehicle fuel. At maximum operating capacity, the site will generate as much as 4.8 million kilowatt-hours each year and will fully power the Adnams brewery and all its lorries. Additionally, the leftover energy will be able to inject up to 60 per cent of gas to the National Grid.
The completion underscores the growing popularity of using waste to generate energy and the widespread acceptance of anaerobic digestion as the most sustainable means to accomplish that. The government has been pushing hard for firms to begin cutting carbon emissions and for the nation to reduce the amount of waste sent to landfill. Anaerobic digestion is being hailed as the marriage of these two issues in a way that successfully gets rid of waste while generating a reliable and stable energy source.
Managing director for communities and energy at British Gas, Gearoid Lane, said that the move was a welcome strategy. He added that the project will show the local community that a low-carbon future is possible. He went on to say that using waste, which would end up in landfills anyway, was the ideal method to mutually benefit local business, residents and the environment. The National Grid has said that biomethane could potentially be used to account for 15 per cent of domestic gas consumption by 2020.
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