UK Anaerobic Digestion Industry on a Role Says WRAP Report

21 February 2012

The UK's Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP) has published a report documenting the current Anaerobic Digestion infrastructure situation in the country.

The document reports the baseline of the infrastructure for anaerobic digestion (AD) in the UK, and was conducted by WRAP and the NNFCC, the UK?s National Centre for BioRenewable Fuel, Energy and Materials, in response to the government?s AD strategy and action plan published in June 2011.

According to the report, authoritative knowledge of the current situation will enable better investment decisions, improve the understanding of the current size of the industry and facilitate enhanced monitoring of growth in the industry.

The reported figures cover the whole of the UK AD industry including the water industry and sites accepting food waste and farm-based waste processors.

The report finds that there are currently 214 AD facilities operating in the UK with a combined capacity of 5 million tonnes. The total installed generating capacity is 170 MW of electricity. Two of those facilities inject gas into the gas grid.

According to the document the figures demonstrate considerable success for the AD industry over recent years, with just two facilities operating outside of the water industry in 2005.

Waste fed

There are reported to be a total of 44 AD facilities in the country that utilise waste as a feedstock, processing approximately 3.7 million tonnes of biowastes each year and having the capacity to generate 54 MW of electricity. One of these plants injects gas to the grid.

Of the waste fed plants, the report found that 13 are supplied by industrial wastes arising from the operator's own on-site activities. These facilities were found to often have a high through put of high liquid content feedstock and have a combined capacity to treat around 2.5 million tonnes of waste and generate 12 MW of electricity.

According to the report the 31 AD facilities that operate on a feedstock on non-industrial waste includes large scale food waste facilities, integrated waste management facilities such MBT plants which include AD treatment processes as part of a range of on-site waste treatment options, and "very small scale" demonstration plants.

Such facilities were found to have a total capacity to process some 1.2 million tonnes of waste each year and generate around 42 MW of electricity.

A third category of waste fed AD facility identified in the report is that of non industrial - commercial plant. This category are large scale plants accepting large volumes of source segregated food wastes from commercial/industrial and municipal collections.

According to the research there are 26 such facilities in the UK with a capacity to handle approximately 1 million tonnes of waste and generate 38 MW of electricity.

Farm fed

The report defines farm fed sites in accordance with the definition used by the Environment Agency. They are on farm AD plants which process manure/slurries and purpose-grown crops.

Of the 24 such plants the report fond that two are demonstrator scale plants which process farm derived feed stocks. According to the report these facilities have a combined capacity of 200,000 tonnes and mainly process a combination of the following feedstock types:

Sewage treatment facilities

According to the report the water industry has used AD as a treatment process for many years.

There are a total of 146 such facilities in the UK with a capacity to treat a total of 1.1 million tonnes each year and generate up to 110 MW of electricity.

Of these facilities one injects gas directly into the national gas grid.

The future

WRAP said that every month it receives a comprehensive list of waste processing sites in the UK which have applied for, or received, planning permission.

According to the report this data gives an indication of a dynamic AD industry within the UK as it does show a large number of plants that are currently within the planning system.

However, the report's authors also warned that careful interpretation and caution is needed because there is uncertainty about the number of plants progressing from planning through to operation.

The research in the report has been compiled using figures correct as of September 2011.