New AD plant planned for Scotland

Fife Council is building a new anaerobic digestion facility at Lochhead landfill site in Dunfermline which will begin generating power later this year.

The AD plant will convert methane extracted from up to 40,000 tonnes of local food and garden waste into up to 1.4MW of renewable electricity and heat. The heat will supply the council's existing district heating system and has the potential to meet all of the heating needs at the nearby Queen Margaret Hospital.

The plant's combined heat and power (CHP) system will be supplied by energy services provider Ener-G and will be able to utilise an MTU engine. Ener-G will finance, develop, install and operate the biogas generation system. The council will recover Feed in Tariff (FiT) payments on the export of electricity to the local network over the 25 year contract period.

The facility will reduce carbon dioxide emissions by more than 7,200 tonnes per year, the equivalent of taking 2,400 cars off the roads annually.

Chris Ewing, Fife Council's environmental sustainability manager, says: 'We believe that turning food and garden waste at Lochhead into power and heat could save the council around £1.2 million (€1.4 million) each year. It will also contribute to our improving recycling rates, which were 55.5% in 2012 for household and commercial waste.'