Isra-Mart srl:Exclusive: Student farmers urged to cash in on anaerobic digestion boom

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Renewable energy specialist Farmgen has revealed it is talking to agricultural colleges with a view to supplying them with commercial anaerobic digestion plants.

The news came as the government yesterday outlined its plans for growing the anaerobic digestion (AD) sector.

Farmgen director Simon Rigby told BusinessGreen that the firm is talking to two agricultural colleges in North West England about installing commercial AD plants with up to 2MW capacity each.

He refused to disclose the name of the colleges in question, but said he hoped to ink deals in the next eight to nine months, after which the technology would be deployed within 12 months.

If the plans go ahead, Rigby said it would provide two valuable demonstration facilities, while also helping the industry gain experience overcoming problems associated with managing a variety of local feedstocks, such as wet grass, which can mat together and stop methane escaping.

"A lot of the on-farm technology in the UK is transplanted from Germany, where they use maize as a feedstock," he said. "But any AD plant in the North of England is going to have to get used to using grass."

While many agricultural colleges already have demonstration AD plants, Rigby said the commercial-scale plants would give students more relevant experience and enable colleges to earn money through feed-in tariffs.

The introduction of feed-in tariffs earlier this year is expected to ramp up the UK's AD capacity, potentially allowing it to catch up with other European markets, such as Germany, which Rigby said has about 5,000 on-site AD plants compared to the UK's 12.

The news came as the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) published its Developing AD framework detailing how it plans to increase the amount of energy produced from waste.

The document calls on the industry to set up working groups to tackle market growth hurdles, such as the lack of relevant skills and the need for better regulation.

Gaynor Hartnell, chief executive of the Renewable Energy Association, welcomed the document as a sign of "the government's commitment to bringing forward a significant and varied contribution from biogas".

She said: "AD is the perfect win-win technology, reducing the costs of waste disposal, developing the rural economy, delivering renewable energy in a variety of forms and replacing carbon-intensive mineral fertiliser."

Defra said the framework will lead to the publication of a joint industry and government AD framework in spring 2011.