• Sustainable ‘green’ gas made from local crops set to heat up to 7,000 homes
• Very first ‘gas to grid’ facility for renewable energy company Biocore
A brand new ‘green gas’ facility in Suffolk is set to fuel thousands of local homes with sustainable energy and benefit local farmers.
Gas made from home-grown crops is set to heat up to 7,000 local homes as the new plant, at Ellough, near Beccles, has been hooked up to the National Grid gas network.
Built and operated by renewable energy company BioCore Environmental Ltd, the plant costing over £15 million uses a process known as anaerobic digestion to turn locally-grown crops, such as maize, into sustainable gas. The gas will fuel up to 7,000 properties on average through National Grid’s gas network.
The state-of-the-art facility marks the very first ‘gas to grid’ project for Biocore. For National Grid it is among the first of at least 80 projects around the country that the company is aiming to connect to its network in the next eight years.
Peter Carey Managing Director of Biocore, said: “We are delighted to have delivered this significant gas to grid plant with National Grid. This plant will provide a number of benefits to farmers in the region whilst contributing significant renewable energy to the local and national grid. It is one of the most efficient uses of biogas and reduces reliance on imported fossil gas, thus contributing to meeting the UK’s renewable energy and climate change targets whilst improving our energy security.”
Richard Court, head of stakeholder delivery at National Grid, said: “This is great news for Suffolk. Biogas, made from crops and other “biomass”, can make a significant contribution to keeping energy supplies secure, affordable and green.
“We’re committed to working with customers like Biocore to connect their projects to our gas network and ensure we can all benefit from alternative forms of energy like this.”
The project is also bringing benefits to the local farming community. The project provides a market for farmers to sell their ‘break crops’ – crops planted by farmers in between other crops to keep the land healthy and fertile. As a by-product, the anaerobic digestion process also produces a valuable organic fertiliser.
Local farmer Jonathan Mitchell, Chairman of the Cantley Beet Group, who is supplying the plant, said: “We are delighted to be supplying Ellough AD with feedstock from the local area. This will give us another market and a secure source of organic fertiliser for many years to come.”
Simon Thompson, the Farm Manager from Sotterley Farms, stated: “The Ellough Biogas project has brought an exciting new marketing opportunity to local farmers by an energy producer that is wholly committed to this pioneering renewable project. It has provided farmers with a profitable outlet for break crops and also allowed them to greatly increase the sustainability of their farming operations.”
The plant at Sotterley processes feedstock, sourced from local farmers, every year. It can produce up to 29,000 cubic metres of gas per day.