Farmers in Cornwall could soon be generating electricity and heat from manure and other feed stocks if the findings of new research project into on-farm anaerobic digestion turn out to be favourable.

 

The research is being commissioned by Cornwall Agri-food Council with funding from the Cornwall Council County Farms Service as well as support from Exmoor National Park Authority.  It aims to assess the economic and technical feasibility of low cost, ‘low tech’ anaerobic digestion and is a follow-up to earlier research undertaken for Cornwall Agri-food Council relating to ‘high tech’ on-farm AD. Insert web link

 

Nicky Garge, Project Co-ordinator of the Cornwall Agri-food Council “There is definitely room for large scale Anaerobic Digestion in Cornwall, however as the scale of farms in the county is often smaller than elsewhere in the UK we need to investigate scalable solutions. Also with the recent increase in Nitrate Vulnerable Zone areas in the county we need to investigate if there are options for generating an additional return from the cost of any extra storage that may need to be built on farms in the county”.

Anaerobic digestion works by taking biodegradable materials such as slurry and silage and feeding them into a digester. The digester produces a biogas that can then be used to power a generator to produce electricity and heat. Several large scale systems are in operation in the UK, but smaller-scale, on-farm systems are rare and the technology is developing rapidly.

 

Five farm scenarios have been chosen including three dairy farms in Cornwall and two mixed farms (primarily beef and sheep) in the Exmoor National Park area . The researchers are being asked to undertake an assessment of potential feed stocks available on specified farms which are participating in the research. They will then review the economic and technical feasibility of at least three different low cost, low tech AD systems in those scenarios.

 

Said Tim Stokes, Sustainability and Economy Manager for Exmoor National Park Authority, “Cornwall Agri-food Council is at the forefront of research relating to farm-scale AD so we were keen to get involved as partners in this learning process”.

 

Knowledge-sharing workshops will be held in Cornwall and Exmoor at the end of the project to disseminate the results of the research.

 

Anyone interested in the research can contact Nicky Garge on 01209 616094 or Tim Stokes on 01398 322235

A device that promises to “take the guesswork out of generating renewable energy” by measuring the amount of power generated by micro power generation equipment, before it is installed, was launched today.

The Power Predictor is the invention of green energy specialist Better Generation on the back of two years’ research and development.

As well as forecasting how long it will take homeowners and businesses to recover the costs of installing solar and wind energy micro power generation equipment, it also recommends the most cost-effective form of renewable energy for a particular site, as well as the most appropriate equipment manufacturers.

Unlike some other products designed to calculate the pay-back time on wind turbines and solar panels, Better Generation says Power Predictor does not rely exclusively on computer modeling, but is in part a physical device that is mounted where the renewable energy equipment is intended to be installed.

The crow-sized device is left for a minimum of 30 days to collect data from the site, which is then fed into the customer’s computer to produce a bespoke report on the amount of solar power and wind energy that could be generated from the site. Products can then be compared and pay-back times measured before a purchase is made.

“For most people, micro power generation is a step into the unknown,” said Toby Hammond, inventor of the Power Predictor and managing director of Better Generation. “No one should spend thousands of pounds on renewable energy equipment without knowing the pay-back time based on the amount of energy they could generate at their premises.”

Aston Farm in Exmoor National Park has tested the Power Predictor, collecting a month’s data from its chosen site (on top of a 10 metre mast in the middle of a field). The resulting power report concluded that the Gala Wind Turbine would best meet the farm’s needs, generating more than enough energy to cover its total energy demand. Better Generation says the installation of the wind turbine will not only reduce the farm’s carbon emissions, but cut its energy bills by £7,000.

In another test, the Power Predictor was used to show that mounting a wind turbine on a roof in an urban area with low wind speeds made little financial sense – in this case the power report suggested installing a Solar PV panel instead, generating predicted savings of £300 a year.

Better Generation believes that in the past, too many people have bought expensive equipment only to find it has not been as efficient as expected or that an alternative product should have been used. It hopes that the Power Predictor will get round this problem and act as an enabling technology to help encourage the take up of renewable energy on a mass scale, both in the UK and abroad.

The Power Predictor is available to homeowners priced £99.95. Trade prices are available to businesses on application.