05 July 2011

Chicken poo to power poultry farm
A farm will power it chicken production through Anaerobic Digestion (AD) from next month.

The Great Ynys Farm, in Hereford, will use the waste from chickens to generate a new income stream as a renewable energy generator.

Boasting 125 acres of arable land and 90,000 broiler chickens, the green electricity will power the poultry houses and AD system with about 90% of the power sold to the National Grid.

The AD system will have capacity to process 700 tonnes of poultry litter and 1000 tonnes of cattle slurry, mixed with 3000 tonnes of maize silage a year.

A combined heat and power system will provide 250kW of electricity, enough to power 450 homes, and 200kW of heat.

This renewable energy source will qualify for financial payments from the government's Feed-In Tariffs (FITs) and Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) programmes - providing 14 pence per kW on all electricity generated and 6.5 pence per kW for the captured heat that is used on site.

Plans are in place to convert the heating system in the farm's broiler houses within the next few months, to utilise heat from the biogas generation process - this is expected to achieve payback on investment within one year.

The farm's new green power company, called Ynergy, has contracted biogas generation business ENER-G and biogas plant manufacturer PlanET Biogastechnik to complete the work.

Ynergy director, Susan Shakesheff, said: "We are able to find a superior alternative for utilising our chicken litter and are helping neighbouring dairy farmers to recycle their cattle slurry.

"We have excellent delivery partners in ENER-G and PlanET Biogastechnik, who both provide us with a modem link to their 24/7 monitoring operations, giving us full visibility of system performance and efficiency data.

"The ongoing maintenance agreement with ENER-G and biological support from PlanET Biogastechnik will maximise efficiency to achieve the fastest possible pay back on our investment."

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