Yet another Anaerobic Digestion Plant for Shropshire

Heath Farm Anaerobic Digestion Plant Shropshire

Heath Farm is owned by family partnership Bedstone Growers. The company grows a wide range of soft fruit and vegetables as well as rearing broiler chickens. The company is looking to minimise its carbon footprint and the AD plant will contribute through electricity and heat generation, waste management, biofertiliser application and GHG capture.

This new AD plant is currently under construction and is due to be commissioned in late 2012.  The main feedstock for the plant will be poultry litter with some maize silage too and the plant will produce 250 kW of electricity per hour, 24 hours a day.  The resulting digestate can also be used on the farm as a compost like fertiliser.

The main benefits of the new development will be increased farm income and profitability in particular with the generous subsidies for electricity production from the Feed in Tariffs.  Further benefits included increased fertiliser and waste management efficiency.  Also the annual chicken shed heating costs will be significantly reduced and it is hoped in the longer term that a reduced carbon footprint for the site will help win new business as contracts increasingly specify environmental performance. 

 

Key stats:

• Output: 250kW(e)
• Primary digester = 1800m³
• Digestate Storage Tank = 980m³

Phillip Mann, Partner at Bedstone Growers said "As a family farming partnership looking to build a Biogas plant it was very important that we chose a British engineering company that would provide not only a well-built plant but would also be flexible to our requirements and design it to fit in with our current farming operations.  We are pleased that when built this plant will be easy to maintain, deliver very efficient gas production and with low running costs."