Homes in northern England will be powered by cheese in a £10M operation that is set to start next month.
It may sound hard to brie-lieve, but a new £10M project in Cumbria will power homes with cheese.
The anaerobic digestion plant in Cumbria will be the first in Europe to convert waste from cheese-manufacturing into bio-methan, by using residues from First Milk’s Aspatria creamery site and then feeding it into the local gas grid.
Wash waters and whey permeate (creamery residue after protein extraction for use in energy supplements) are pumped to the plant from the creamery, which is then turned into gas and used to generate electricity on-site.
Around 60% of that gas is expected to be taken back out of the grid for the creamery’s own use in steam making, leaving the equivalent of 1,600 homes’ annual gas usage circulating to homes and businesses in rural Cumbria.
Lake District Biogas, the developer which is funding the up-front cost of the project, is expected to receive about £2M a year in subsidies, paid for by consumers through levies on their energy bills, for the next 20 years.
The plant was bought by Clearfleau, who say that the total amount of gas being fed into the gas grid each year would be equivalent to the annual gas needs of 4,000 homes.
Clearfleau chief executive Craig Chapman said: “This project, generating biogas solely from creamery residues, is based on British engineering and is transforming the way in which the dairy industry manages its residues.
“This shows how sustainability can be an integral part of our food supply chain.”
The project will cut the costs of energy and waste disposal at the creamery, which produces thousands of tonnes of cheddar every year.
The scheme is being financed through a mixture of the Government subsidy scheme, which rewards homes and businesses for producing energy from renewable sources, and gas sales.
The post ‘Grate’ £10M project which will power homes with cheese appeared first on UK Construction Online.
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