The one-off £800,000 loan will be added to other funding secured by Malaby Biogas, including support from Clydesdale Bank, to construct and commission a new anaerobic digestion plant on the site of a redundant 12-acre smallholding.

Construction of the new £5m plant, located at Bore Hill Farm to the south of Warminster, Wiltshire, is already under way and Malaby, and its technology provider Marches Biogas, hope that commissioning will begin in March.

“Feedstock for the plant will be non-packaged food waste supplied by a new commercial collection operator with additional material potentially coming from other commercial and industrial food waste providers within the local area,” explained Malaby director Thomas Minter.

“Initially the plant will process around 17,000 tonnes of waste a year and we’d hope to be able to handle up to 20,000 tonnes at full capacity.”

The plant is expected to generate 4.3 million kilowatt hours of electricity a year, the equivalent required to power 1,000 homes. Around seven per cent of this is likely to be used to power the AD plant itself, and any excess that is generated will be sold on to National Grid.

“Malaby is the first of what we hope will be a number of companies to benefit from the anaerobic digestion loan fund and it is excellent to see such good progress being made at the Wiltshire plant,” said WRAP director Steve Creed.

“We’re currently considering a number of other applications, and the new round of loan awards for 2012 has just begun, so we’d encourage anyone who is interested in the fund to get in touch with us.”

Defra Minister Lord Taylor said: “The energy that can be created from food waste that would otherwise lie rotting in landfill is astonishing. This £800,000 investment from our £10 million anaerobic digestion fund will help this new plant to be built so we can harness that energy to power our towns and cities and remove a cause of greenhouse gas emissions form landfill.”

Richard Nuttall, Business Partner - Natural Resources, Clydesdale Bank said: "Clydesdale Bank is delighted to support Malaby Gas Ltd in the development of this venture which we believe to be an excellent project. We have also been pleased to work alongside WRAP on the provision of this finance for Malaby Biogas Ltd."

A maximum of £10m is available, through individual loans ranging from £50,000 - £1m, over a five-year period.

Applications for the current round can be submitted before 30th April.

More information on the fund can be found here.

We have been at a series of WRAP workshops in December in Edinburgh, Bristol and London to discuss the implications both of revising the PAS110 and ADQP and of aligning it with the new EU scheme.

We have also produced a Questionnaire with a simplified synopsis of the main document and circulated it to AD operators and other organisations. The results have bene received and sent to WRAP and Defra to inform their response to the JRC. We are extremely concerned that unless some key provisionsof the EoW prooosal are changed, that food waste plants in the UK will be unable to comply ad will therefore not be able to class PAS110 digestate as re-cycling.

A copy of the written responses and the notes from a phone consultation are accessible on the Biofertiliser Certification Scheme website.

The current version of the Training and Skills Matrix is just a basic starting point and will hopefully, through further input from others capture the mix of needs within AD.

Eventually all area/roles identified will have not just a list of relevant topics but a list of relevant learning outcomes. Further information about qualifications, training courses and other sources of information will also be added to the matrix.

Help develop the matrix

CIWM need your expertise to capture all training and skills needs and to identify existing courses and sources of information. To suggest further information to help populate the matrix please email Claire Poole -  claire.poole@ciwm.co.uk

The planned investment, announced today by the government in its Autumn Statement, will be managed by the Technology Strategy Board (www.innovateuk.org). The funding includes £6.5 million for a low emission goods vehicle demonstration trial, plus the supporting infrastructure for trial vehicles, with a further £1.5 million targeted funding for public gas refuelling hubs.

Link to website for details 

The announcement was made on the same day as our Biomethane for Transport Sub Group visit to the new CNG filling station at Crewe - To see the presentations - go to members area of this website and look under Working Groups/Projects

• Launching a £15m Rural Community Renewable Energy Fund to help communities meet the upfront cost of developing Renewables projects
• Reducing Regulation on farms - e.g. easing the burden of the Nitrates Directive

Launching a £15m Rural Community Renewable Energy Fund to help communities meet the upfront cost of developing renewable energy projects. It will provide loans to help rural communities to undertake the early feasibility and planning work necessary to develop viable renewable energy schemes in which the private sector is willing to invest. The communities will repay the loans so that the money can be recycled to support other community schemes. This is an efficient and effective way of using public money and will enable up to 150 community schemes to be developed over the next 4 years. Details of the fund will be published in due course.

Ofgem Guidance for applications:

Volume One of the Guidance describes the eligibility requirements of the RHI and how prospective participants can become accredited or registered as applicable. 

Volume Two of the Guidance describes the ongoing requirements for RHI participants, information on how periodic support payments are calculated and paid, and our compliance and enforcement powers.
 
 

The ‘Driving Innovation in AD’ challenge is a two phase programme of work. Once applicants have detailed their idea/solution to one or both of the projects they will be selected to undertake a feasibility study, indicating the viability of their projects. Those projects which show the most significant benefits and potential will progress to phase two demonstrations.

If you wish to tender for either or both of the projects please register your details and download the relevant application pack(s) for further information and guidance. Driving Innovation in AD

Closing Date

Applications to both projects are due by 12:00 noon on 21st December 2011

The manual can also be found on the same link or accessed in the file below

The changes to the tariffs takes effect automatically. Therefore the new tariffs for AD will apply to installations with an eligibility date from 30 September 2011 which is the date on which the Commission made the decision.

This information is now also posted on the FITs pages on the review

DECC was planning to launch the Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) for non-domestic generators on 30 September 2011.   However, changing the large biomass tariff will require the RHI regulations to be amended and submitted to Parliament for approval. Government are therefore unable to launch the scheme as a whole until this process has been completed. So the scheme will not be open for applications on 30 September 2011 as originally planned.

RHI change will need parliamentary approval (affirmative resolution procedure – votes/discussion in both Houses of Parliament). The new regulations will have to be laid 40 days before they can be discussed. Therefore end November a realistic deadline, but not absolutely guaranteed at this stage

Close of Consultation: 8th November 2011

Download the document

The UK Biomass and Biogas Carbon Calculator was developed by E4tech, with support from the Environment Agency, the Department of Energy and Climate Change and the NNFCC. 

27 October 2011 - is the deadline for comments.

See the documents

Closing date: 31/8/2011

WRAP would like to verify recent risk assessments which have confirmed that anaerobic digestion offers a robust mechanism for the production of safe, sanitised digestate. The project will investigate the impact of pasteurisation before or after digestion on a range of common agricultural pests and diseases such as Black Grass, Fusarium and Clubroot.

Link for Tender

This report is an expansion of an original presentation given by  Masstock Farm Consultancy which has working relationships with over 60% of the UK farming industry.   The report is jointly authored by Roger Hellawell of Masstock and Brittany Vogel of REA with contributions by David Collins.

The report is available to REA Biogas members in the members area under  Reports

We understand that this is because the government has not yet received sign off from the European Commission confirming that the increased rates are compatible with State Aid rules. Therefore any plant which accredits with Ofgem before the approval is received will receive the lower rate of FITs. DECC officials are not able to say when the approval is expected.

In view of the fact that the entire FITs tariff scheme was launched in 2010 before State Aids was formally approved, the delay on the increased FITs tariffs for AD appears unreasonable.

We would like to hear from any AD operator or developer who has been adversely affected by the situation.

See also:

Ofgem’s website

DECC’s page on the FIT’s Fast-track review

Annex 2 of the FITs Licence modifications

BV Dairy offically opened its innovative and effective new hig-rate liquid AD system which is treating feedstocks from dairy products at the adjacent factory.

David Collins attended the event and is pictured with Richard Gueterbock, a leading member of REA Biogas.  Richard recently received recognition for the plant at the REA UK Renewable Energy Awards