News

In Castle Bytham, Lincolnshire, UK, an application filed by Bygen Power for the construction of a biogas plant has received unanimous objecting votes from Castle Bytham parish council in an attempt to block the build on a nearby farm. Deemed as too large and in the wrong place, local residents have expressed woes about vehicle noise and pollution, and the possibility of water contamination.…
Read More »

County councillors in St. Albans, UK, have approved a biomass plant. If the facility receives planning permission from the Secretary of State it will be built on EQ Waste Management’s composting site, which has spontaneously combusted numerous times in previous years. EQ’s director Adrian Lupson received a £17,000 (€20,220) fine in 2009 after management of the plot was deemed below the…
Read More »

The Kenya Domestic Biogas Programme, which will see the construction of 8,000 biogas digesters across 28 districts in Kenya, Africa, is receiving a helping hand from the Netherlands. The Dutch government will invest KES200 million (€2 million) in the programme while beneficiaries will raise the other half in order to implement the Sh50,000 each digesters. Each digester will run off a daily…
Read More »

Clearfleau, a UK-based provider of on-site treatment solutions for the food and beverage sector, is commissioning an anaerobic digestion (AD) plant in rural Cumbria. By feeding bio-methane into the gas grid, the facility will produce over £3 million (appr. €3.8m) per annum in cost savings and revenue, while supplying up to 25% of First Milk’s Aspatria creamery’s energy…
Read More »

The global biomass pellet market is expected to grow with a CAGR of 11.1% until 2020, according to a recent market study. According to research by Research & Markets, as US-based market watchdog, the increasing use of biomass pellets in power industry is propelling the growth of the global biomass pellet market. The growing demand for renewable energy sources is one of the important factors,…
Read More »

Gainesville Regional Utilities (GRU) and American Renewables' joint petition for the Gainesville Renewable Energy Center, a planned 100MW biomass power plant has been approved by Florida's Public Service Commission (FPS). American Renewables will build, own and operate the facility and will sell all energy and environmental attributes generated from the facility to GRU for a period of…
Read More »

The government of Ireland has launched new renewable energy feed-in tariffs, helping to fortify the biomass industry. The renewable energy feed-in tariffs range from €0.15 per kilowatt hour (kWh) to €0.8.5 per kWh depending on the technology deployed, as well as a miscanthus pilot demonstration programme. The new biomass tariffs, introduced on 24 May, support technologies including…
Read More »

Located at the Budd Inlet Treatment Plant in Washington State, US, a biogas and energy efficiency project costing over $2 million (€1.5 million) is set to save the sewage agency around $228,000 in annual utility costs. The $2.4 million project will capture methane gas from a sewage treatment plant that will then be used to power machinery at the plant. The heat generated will be utilised by…
Read More »

Energy company Electrabel and France-based electricity generation and distribution firm GDF Suez Group have launched a €40 million biomass generating system at the Gelderland power station in Nijmegen, the Netherlands. The Gelderland power station originally burnt coal but the conversion will result in around one quarter of this being replaced by wood pellets. With a total capacity of…
Read More »

Finnish technology firm Valmet will supply a wood pellet heating plant to electricity firm Helen Oy's Salmisaari power plant. The wood pellet plant will enable Helen to increase the use of bio fuels in district heat production in Helsinki. The new plant helps the city of Helsinki to meet its aim of increasing its production of renewable energy. The start-up of the heating plant is expected to…
Read More »

John Ibbett, chairman of the AD group Biogen Greenfinch located in Bedfordshire, UK, manages 5,500 acres of land, 23,000 pigs sold to the likes of Tesco and J Sainsbury and an annual production 12.5 million litres of Bedfordshire herd slurry. With the enforcement of government laws such as the taxation on rubbish sent to landfill sites as a way of reducing waste, Ibbett’s agribusiness then…
Read More »

Finnish utility Fortum has called for a clear EU-level sustainability criteria for biomass and a transition to a market-driven system in place of complex subsidy systems. The state-run firm unveiled its views in its latest Energy Review series. Fortum said the uncertainty regarding biomass-related regulatory policy has increased in the EU, which adds instability to the biomass markets and…
Read More »

After the official opening ceremony took place in Lappeenranta, southern Finland on 7 May, the country’s largest wood-burning biomass power plant has begun production. The plant, owned by energy companies Pohjolan Voima and Lappeenrannan Energia cost €240 million to construct and has the capacity to generate 385MW of thermal power and 125MW of electricity. Around half of the 80% biomass…
Read More »

UK-based clean tech firm ENER-G has switched on a biogas from wastewater project in Budapest, Hungary. Described as one of Europe’s most ambitious biogas from wastewater schemes, the Living Danube programme is Europe’s largest environmental investment currently under implementation. ENER-G Energia Technologia Zrt., the Hungarian subsidiary of ENER-G, has designed and built a €2.6 million…
Read More »