Wissington biofuels/sugar beet plant plans major £25m biogas facility

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From this morning's Eastern Daily Press (23/6/11)

Biogas plan
is a major
investment


British Sugar intends to invest
substantially more than £25m in a
biogas plant to cut fossil fuel use by
a quarter at its flagship Wissington
factory.

A proposed bioenergy plant at the
world's largest beet sugar factory,
near Downham Market, would make
methane gas to power operations on
the 500-acre site.

It will create 10 new jobs and about
200 in the construction phase, which
should start early next year if
approved by Norfolk County
Council.

The "beet biogas" production would
be enough to heat about 22,000 homes
and would cut Wissington's carbon
dioxide emissions by about 90,000
tonnes a year.

Factory manager Paul Hitchcock
said: "One of the good things about
this project is we can start to say that
we're growing our own fuel."

Wissington makes sugar from more
than two million tonnes of beet
grown by the region's farmers. It also
markets a valued by-product of about
150,000 tonnes of dried, pelleted beet
pulp for feeding to livestock.

Converting the pulp into "beet
biogas" would achieve further major
cuts in fossil fuel use, said Mr
Hitchcock.

After extracting sugar, about 100,000
tonnes of pulp will feed an anaerobic
digestion plant on the edge of the
site. The process creates water, which
will be treated before discharge, and
solids, which will be dried as a
fertiliser for farmers. It also produces
gas, roughly 50:50 methane and
carbon dioxide, which will be taken
from the lagoon and pumped into the
boilerhouse for electricity
generation.

"We're balancing the cost of fuel
with cost benefit of animal feed. This
is the most critical financial balance
of this project because we will lose
revenue from selling animal feed,"
said Mr Hitchcock.

The covered lagoon, which will
contain about 150,000 cubic metres,
should produce about 12.5 million
therms of gas, or 25pc of the factory's
power needs, from summer 2013.
The lagoon, which will be lined with
clay and a plastic membrane, will be
sunk five metres below ground and
be five metres high.

Mr Hitchcock, who has a total of 267
permanent staff, said: "We've been
running a pilot plant on site, which
we have been feeding with pressed
pulp from the 2009/10 campaign. And
over the past year we've gathered a
lot of data about how we can get best
yields."

There will be public exhibitions on
July 2, at Southery village hall, 9am to
noon, and at Downham Market Town
Hall, 1.30pm to 5pm. The exhibition
will also be at Wereham village hall
on Monday, July 4, 4pm to 7pm.

See: http://www.britishsugarbioenergy.com/ for company's website on project
and http://www.britishsugarbioenergy.com/how-would-the-bioenergy-facili/

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