RDC - Robert Doughty - Town Planning and Landscape Architecture
RDC - Robert Doughty - Town Planning and Landscape Architecture
The drive towards renewable energy production within the agricultural industry is now gathering momentum and one such project is at Wrangle, near Boston.
Out of specification vegetables, leaves and roots etc from the pack houses will be used to create methane that is then burned to produce electricity for cold stores, etc. The resultant material, or digestate, is put back on the land as fertilizer at the end of the process. Our proposal was developed following pre-application discussions with Planning and Environmental Health Officers, together with the EnvironmentAgency.
The multi-million pound project is one of five UK exemplar projects to receive funding from Defra as part of the £10 million Anaerobic Digestion Demonstration Programme, administered through the Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP). When announcing the funding awards, Environment Minister Hilary Benn described the project as;
"...truly ground-breaking and will be used to show how cutting edge technology can work in practice. Between them, they demonstrate how anaerobic digestion can help the UK efficiently meet the challenges of reducing carbon emissions, increasing renewable energy production and improving sustainable food production. We will use what we learn from these projects to help develop the industry across the UK."
Production of energy commenced in early 2010. We are now working on a further plant in Lincolnshire and another on the Isle of Wight for our clients.
