Anaerobic digestion plant opened in Gloucestershire with increased biogas capacity

A £2.3 million anaerobic digestion plant has been opened in Gloucestershire, UK, to turn 34,000 tonnes of food waste per year into energy. Opened by waste management firm Andigestion, the plant will receive source separated food waste as part of a contract with Gloucestershire County Council. Under the contract, Andigestion collects all food waste from households in Cheltenham, Gloucester City, Forest of Dean and Tewkesbury Borough Councils - approximately 185,000 households. The biomethane plant will generate 5.7 million cubic metres of biomethane a year, enough to supply 4,200 homes with gas and 29,500 tonnes of liquid fertiliser. By incorporating a pre-treatment (booster and chiller) phase to maximise the capacity, biogas capacity has been increased from 550 Nm³/hr to 650 Nm³/hr. As a result, the plant has been designed to recover “more than 99% of the methane from the incoming raw biogas”. Depackaging equipment was provided by Rowan Engineering and involves three DM3000 ‘Dominators’ with two primary ‘Dominators’ feeding a secondary unit. The ‘Dominators’ are a 3m long hammer mill design. The use of the third ‘Dominator’ allows the plant to clean up rejected packaging from the first two, leading to a clean output, suitable for recycling. The odour control plant was supplied by ATS. The design aim was to minimise air changes – at the same time as maintaining odour control by utilising jet flow and directional flow nozzles to concentrate the odours in areas where maximum extraction takes place. The neutralising media is wood chip from Italy and Germany. As part of its waste collection business, Andigestion has also launched a wheelie bin exchange service. The 240 litre bins are micro chipped. MOBA provided software means tracking and invoicing can be automatic – and managed remotely. At the plant, a wheelie bin emptying system has been procured from Challenger Engineering. This includes a dynamic weighing system, so weights for each individual bin can be recorded and reported to customers - who require information on the waste tonnages they are diverting from landfill. ### Read more Anaerobic digestion plant to process 45,000 tpa of food waste into 2.1 MW in Herts, UK Food waste to biogas project in Michigan closes Palm oil waste to energy plant to generate 2.3 MW in Indonesia