Weltec Biopower is building a 500 kW anaerobic digestion plant in Northern Ireland for vegetable producer Gilfresh Produce. This is Weltec’s third plant in Northern Ireland and eleventh in the UK.
Gilfresh used to deliver the vegetable waste that accumulates in the sorting, washing and packaging processes to farmers as cattle feed. From July 2015, the waste and the vegetable washing water will be loaded into the bioreactor. To maintain an optimum stock level, an underground pre-storage tank is located before the two 2,625-cubed-meter stainless-steel digesters; a 6,000-cubed-meter tank is planned for gas-tight digestate storage. In addition to vegetable waste, cattle manure, chicken litter as well as whole crop, grass and maize silage will be used as feedstocks.
About 40 percent of the power generated by the 500 kW CHP plant can be utilized in the company‘s own production process. In the near future, the efficiency will increase even more due to the upcoming expansion of the cold storage. The excess power is fed into the public grid, and the process heat is made use of for heating the company buildings and for the production processes.
