Farm uses poultry power to supply green energy
Green energy news – by GreenWise staff
5th July 2011
A poultry farm in Hereford has diversified into renewable energy generation by converting chicken litter into biogas for green electricity and heat.
Great Ynys Farm, which has 125 acres of arable land and a 90,000 broiler chicken operation, has formed
green energy company
Ynergy Ltd. The new business will use
anaerobic digestion (AD) to process 700 tonnes of poultry litter and 1000 tonnes of cattle slurry per annum into green electricity and heat. Eligible for subsidies through the Government’s Feed-in Tariff (FiT) and Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) schemes, the combined heat and power system will provide 250 kilowatt (kW) of electricity, sufficient to power 450 homes, and 200 kW of heat.
The plant will power the farms poultry houses, while captured heat will provide warmth for the chicken houses. A 90 per cent surplus of green energy, meanwhile, will be fed into the National Grid, enabling the farm to secure a further income stream.
"We are proud to be at the forefront of the move to anaerobic digestion, and to improve our sustainability, and energy self sufficiency, while securing a new income stream," said Susan Shakesheff, director of Ynergy Ltd. "We are able to find a superior alternative for utilising our chicken litter and are helping neighbouring dairy farmers to recycle their cattle slurry."
New income stream
The FiT is providing 14 pence per kW on all electricity generated by the AD plant while the RHI is paying 6.5 pence per kW for the captured heat that is used on site.
Plans are in place to convert the heating system in the farm’s broiler houses within the next few months, to utilise heat from the biogas generation process. This is expected to achieve payback on
investment within one year.
The digestion process also produces a residue of 5000 cubic metres of organic liquid fertilizer.
Ynergy Ltd has hired biogas generation experts ENER-G and biogas plant manufacturer PlanET Biogastechnik to deliver the project, which will be operational by August 1.
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