Anaerobic Digestion

About the work

  • Anaerobic digestion is the production of gas from wet slurries of animal waste and vegetable matter. The gas can then be used to run generators to produce electricity and heat.
  • The farms in Humshaugh do not produce the volume of animal waste needed and the grass is needed for silage. They could possibly join with others but transporting the material may cost too much.
  • Small AD plants just to supply a farmhouse with heat are uneconomic.
  • The Codlaw AD and combined heat and power plant at Hexham, is located beside a substation and uses specifically grown grass and maize as its feedstock and benefits from a good feed-in tariff for its electricity output. This tariff is no longer available.


Further Information

The report contains more details of the anaerobic digestion process and the equipment needed to build a system. It gives indications of sizes of plant and the costs involved, which may be of interest to farmers.

Opportunities

Unfortunately, there is little scope for this form of generation in the Parish.