Biogen Plans Food Waste-to-Power Plants in UK on Rising Landfill Tax

Louise Downing, Bloomberg
January 18, 2013 | 6 Comments

Biogen Ltd., a U.K. developer of plants that generate electricity from food waste, plans to start building four to five facilities this year as rising landfill taxes increases the costs of burying waste underground.

The company already has the funding in place to build the projects, Richard Barker, chief executive officer of Bedfordshire-based Biogen, said today by e-mail. It plans to raise about 30 million pounds ($48 million) to implement projects through 2014 and beyond, he said, and some of this funding is already in place.

Supermarkets and businesses are being encouraged to send their food waste to anaerobic digestion facilities such as those offered by Biogen by a landfill tax that makes it increasingly expensive to bury waste. It was introduced in April at 64 pounds a ton and is set to increase by 8 pounds a year. The tax will help drive expansion of the U.K.’s waste-to-energy industry, Barker said.

Biogen plans in March to start building a 2.5-megawatt project in Hertfordshire that will generate enough electricity for about 4,000 homes. It also plans to start work on a plant in Denbighshire and is the preferred bidder for a plant in South Wales. Biogen is already building a facility in North Wales. By 2014 its total food waste processing capacity will have doubled to about 200,000 tons-a-year, the CEO said.

The U.K.’s Department of Energy and Climate Change estimates bioenergy plants using wood chip and food and agricultural waste to produce heat and power may meet 8 percent to 11 percent of the country’s primary energy demand within eight years.

Increased Competition

Interest in Biogen’s facilities comes from across the whole food waste supply chain, from manufacturers through to supermarkets and the hospitality industry, said Barker. This year will probably see increased competition from new companies and merger and acquisition opportunities, he said. Biogen will focus on the U.K. market.

Kier Group Plc, a U.K. construction company, in August bought half of Biogen for 24.4 million pounds. Biogen remains “open minded” about taking on new strategic investors in the future, Barker said. It’s already in discussions with potential partners for future projects.

Lead image: Compost via Shutterstock

6 Comments

terry hallinan
April 26, 2013

Hi Mart,

I surely wish you all the best in your studies.

My interest is not totally academic though it would have been better for me had it been. A very hot bioreactor from a university in Utah cost me a bundle. It was an experience that I would prefer not to relive. An absurdly incompetent licensee might well have caused its own incredible problems. The biogas was even cleaned, sanitized and partially dehydrated to become an equivalent to natural gas but at some considerable trouble and expense.

Few know about nutrient trading credits that have been provided by U.S. states to clean up rivers, lake and offshore ocean locations by some states. If nutrients can be removed from the effluent of livestock farms, there will not be the principal cause of algal blooms. The nutrients themselves can even be recycled as fertilizer or sold on the open market.

The following is a white paper that concentrates only on recycling nitrogen in a project that may be ongoing:

http://www.bionpa.com/docs/Nutrient%20Trading%20&%20Cost%20Containment-Sept%202010.pdf

I cannot verify the claims for greatly superior efficiency in extracting methane as a byproduct but there are numerous academic research projects that detail same.

I think your link may be outdated as to claims for excessive cost of biogas for microturbine fuel but again I only know of claims to the contrary. Exaggerated claims for hydrogen fuel cells, however, were an expensive bust for Iceland over many years despite all the hype. I would guess it would be no different with biogas.

Best, Terry

Mart Elizalde
April 26, 2013

Well that is true indeed, Biogas generation by anaerobic digestion it's been going around for a while now, Indian and Chinese communities that are dedicated to agriculture know this pretty well. And we also have the anaerobic digestion process for treating wastewater which has been around for some decades now... But there has been a lot of improvement on this topic.

Our understanding on bacteria and anaerobic processes has grown and that is why we have now optimized biogas plants in large scale for agricultural wastes and energy crops (which are controversial) The next steps are doing large scale biogas plants for a way more complex feedstock such as foodwaste. And forget about the methane, there's even some research on producing biohydrogen from biomass by anaerobic digestion and/or dark fermentation, although I know little on this topic, but how cool is that!

You said some efforts to extract nutrients from biomass are more efficient, that sounds pretty interesting :D what kind of methods? I would really like to read about them :)

Hehe, no I haven't taste English food, but I can imagine what you say haha. Talking about food I got to say that as a Mexican I'm used to see people cooking almost all the parts of an animal, nothing gets wasted, it is the same for many asian countries. Sadly in that regard the developed world is different, that contributes to food waste.

Finally, This is a paper on biogas, I found it useful. I'm not sure if you will be able to see this link, but here it is:

http://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007%2Fs00253-009-2246-7.pdf

I just happen to be doing a master research on this topic right now that is why I have the info so fresh. Also that is why I'm curious about it.

Kind regards.

terry hallinan
April 24, 2013

BTW, Mart, during the Irish Potato Famine the English generated a leaflet with recipes for rotten potato cooking.

As the son of an Irish immigrant, I all too well aware of the terrible Irish cooking but the English proved once again that they can't be topped in that regard.

You wonder why there is so much food waste in England? Have you not eaten any English cooking? :-)

terry hallinan
April 24, 2013

Hi mart-elizalde,

The centuries-old anaerobic digesters are not the most efficient way to generate methane.

The first anaerobic digesters were longitudinal boxes buried in the ground in Southeast Asia to generate fertilizer from waste. The methane byproduct was then a novelty.

More efficient ways of dealing with waste comes from efforts to extract nutrients from biomass as a way of cleaning up the pollution of streams and lakes as the nutrients are recycled.

Once again the methane is a byproduct and there is no need for landfills.

Why must we learn so slowly?

Best, Terry

Mart Elizalde
April 24, 2013

Its a huge improvement on the landfill problem. the residues are already stabilized after the anaerobic process, which means, for shorts, its basically enriched soil, so it will not produce methane and leachate as if you just throw the original waste on the landfill. Also the volume is reduced, although I admit I'm not sure in what percentage. As a bonus you are generating energy. It´s a great solution!... And yes, food waste shouldn't exist in the first place, specially at the rates of the UK in which around 30 to 40% of the food produced is turned into waste, but it is there and turning it into energy is a big solution. Now, it is important to remember that food waste characteristics (PH, C/N ratio and nutrients in general) can vary according to the geographical location, so before going around saying this is the solution to everyone everywhere it is important to do some analysis on the specific case.

terry hallinan
January 22, 2013

After anaerobic digesters extract some of the available methane, the bulk of the biomass remains little diminished.

How exactly does that solve the landfill problem?

Understand I don't mean to knock the digesters though superior methods are coming on stream but one should understand that the fiber residue and even the waste before digestion has value for power generation as thermal biomass.

Best, Terry