The BIOGEN concept
The concept of generating methane from organic matter is not new and dates back in the waste water treatment sector as early as 1895. Neither was BIOGEN the first to build an AD plant that creates biogas on a UK farm. What makes BIOGEN's technology unique is its commercial scale and fully integrated approach.
In the last decade AD technology has been proven on a commercial scale in Europe, with over 3000 operational plants in Germany alone, ranging from small scale farm digesters processing slurry to large centralised facilities processing a range of organic wastes. The German model of using AD to generate renewable energy from specially grown bio-fuels has met many of these challenges in that country. BIOGEN however identified the additional opportunity to use its own pig slurry to feed the AD process and also provide a local recycling solution for other food chain waste in the UK.
The development of the BIOGEN process coincided with a change in UK Government strategies and a growing global awareness of the need to reduce carbon emissions and greenhouse gases. Central to this was the need to reduce the amount of waste going to landfill and to exploit new greener technologies for the management of waste and generation of renewable energy.
Unlike the German model for AD, BIOGEN designed its Integrated AD plant to take a mix of feedstocks that included slurry and both packaged and non packaged food chain waste. As a result, BIOGEN's pioneering Twinwoods plant was built to integrate with a direct feed from a livestock unit (the Bedfordia Farms pig finishing unit). The bio-fertiliser produced by this plant is delivered back to the farm's arable land via a pipeline and umbilical hose system.
This fully integrated approach was the very first in the UK and its proven success forms the basis for rolling out the model to other farm-based applications across the UK.
