Pigs, Cows And Chickens Are Recruited To Power English Village

The new "animal farm" AD biogas plant demonstrates how rural villages will be powered by local energy

The future of community energy is being pioneered near the small English village of Hatherop where a power station using biogas or "digester gas" was recently commissioned.

Powered by agricultural biomass, including chicken litter, cow dung and pig slurry, residents of the village will benefit from this low cost alternative to oil, coal and foreign gas.

Hatherop is one of the first villages in the United Kingdom to receive power derived from the "animal farm", whose sustainable energy technology allows production of local power, called "distributed energy."

This type of energy production reduces energy waste, reliance on fossil fuels, energy imports and costs. This is because the plant is fuelled by naturally decaying biological matter.

As well as energy security, this technology brings low cost heat and electricity, along with new jobs to rural areas. The process has an added benefit by capturing smells normally generated by farms in a dome and burning them in the energy production process.

Local farms deliver animal waste and crops, such as maize and grass, as the fuel for the plant. After the process of extracting the methane from the feed stock, farmers will use the residual, called "digestate", as fertiliser for new crops for food and animal feed.

The plant will produce 350 kilowatts of electricity per hour, enough to supply 175 homes with electricity.

World Leading Plant

Alfagy was chosen as the main Combined Heat and Power (CHP) supplier after a competition against leading manufacturers such as GE Energy, Jenbacher, MWM and MAN.

"As the UK is 30 years behind continental Europe in energy efficiency, this is an important demonstration of a sustainable energy future", said Peter Kindt, the chairman of Alfagy. "What makes this project exciting is that farmers deliver energy to the local community, a new business model for farmers".

The plant started generating power for the first time on 5 April 2011.

The AD plant and inclusion of the CHP was designed by Frank Kenny of Water and Waste Services Ltd. He also contributed significantly to the project management and comments: "It has been a great pleasure working with James and Jeremy. The plant start up has been without any hitches and by using WWS's process expertise and design, a very efficient plant has been delivered that is a model to reduce Greenhouse Gases across the agricultural sector."

Other European farmers are now considering similar projects.

Darrel Moore