A new biomethane plant in Co. Cork is set to produce 70,000 tonnes of biofertilizer a year which will be made available to local farmers.
Stream BioEnergy, which develops and operates renewable biogas facilities in Ireland and the UK, is currently building an €80 million plant on Little Island.
The company recently reached a milestone of 12 months of project construction.
The plant, which is expected to be fully operational by June 2027, will process domestic and commercial food and garden waste.
“We will receive 90,000 tons of organic waste at this facility (annually) and produce 70,000 tons of liquid digestate that will be available to land banks and farmers in the local area,” said Morgan Burke, chief operating officer of Stream BioEnergy. Agriland.
The digestate is a byproduct of anaerobic digestion (AD) processes, which can be used as fertilizer.
“It will be nutrient-dense and, most importantly, it will be nurtured, so it will be very safe to use from a sustainability and biosecurity point of view,” he added.
The plant’s anaerobic digesters will also produce biogas which will be upgraded to biomethane and biogenic carbon dioxide (CO2).
“We will inject biomethane into the gas grid where it will replace natural gas from fossil fuels and biomethane will be available for use in local industry,” Burke said.
The Little Island plant is expected to supply more than 80 gigawatt hours of renewable biomethane annually to the national grid, enough to heat 6,000 homes.
The facility will reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 40,000 tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) per year, the same as taking 17,000 cars off the road each year.
Biomethane
Stream BioEnergy has been seeking to develop a biomethane plant at the 5ac site on Little Island for more than a decade.
“We have faced many business, regulatory and political challenges along the way, and it has been a long and arduous journey,” Burke said. “So we are really pleased to begin this journey.”
The company currently operates a specialist biomethane plant in Northern Ireland that uses poultry manure as a feedstock.
“It is the only plant in the world that has succeeded in achieving this,” Burke said. “Our plan is to develop a similar plant in Monaghan in the near future, as well as to develop more of these types of plants internationally.”
Ru
Government proposal Renewable heat commitment (RHO) was expected to be introduced in the Dáil in the coming months.
but, Fears The idea has been raised that a new opinion from the European Commission could include the development of biomethane and anaerobic digestion sector In Ireland it is in danger.
It is understood that the Commission has now considered the proposed “double” of the original biomethane contained in the RHO to be incompatible with EU internal market rules.
While acknowledging the government’s efforts on RHO, Burke said it was “very important that they provide a mechanism to protect domestically produced biomethane from cheaper sources of biomethane that can come from abroad.”
Renewable energy
“Ireland is a very promising market for biomethane,” said Robert Shaw, managing director of Pioneer Point Partners, the majority shareholder in Stream BioEnergy.
He does not view the EU Commission’s opinion of the human rights organization as “generally negative”.
“In the framework of the opinion, the EU has given a very clear signal about the path Ireland can take on the regional human rights organization to make it successful,” he said.
Shaw said they would urge the government to implement the RHO “as soon as possible.”
He suggested that the government remove the multiplier from RHO, but tighten the definition around biomethane subsidized in the scheme.
“If we can do that, put the scheme into practice and tighten the definition, we will have a framework in Ireland that will really stimulate the sector,” he said.
