The German manufacturer WELTEC BIOPOWER has been commissioned by the English recycling company Eco Sustainable Solutions Ltd. to build a biomethane plant. The plant is located near Bournemouth Airport in the south of England. Eco Sustainable will operate the plant itself and fill the stainless steel tanks with household waste and agricultural residues from nearby businesses and its own farms. A de-packaging plant for food is already in place at another nearby location. From the end of 2025, the plant will produce processed biogas, which will be fed into the national gas grid as a natural gas equivalent.
Uniform mix, high system availability
WELTEC‘s modular plant design enables the project to be completed within 18 months. Proven pump and agitator technologies are used for sustainable digestion of the previously homogenized organic materials – such as submersible motor and long-axis agitators with high performance, which prevent substrates from settling at the bottom of the tanks and ensure optimal mixing of the input materials. No interruption to biomethane production is necessary during system maintenance, which contributes to high plant availability. WELTEC BIOPOWER also supplies pump containers, dosing units, desulphurization, heating and three downstream hygienization systems. The biogas produced is processed into biomethane using an upgrading system with membrane technology.
WELTEC CONTROL ensures simple operation of the plant
The components can be monitored and regulated by Eco Sustainable Solutions at any time via the web-based control system. “ The innovative tool guarantees complete and rapid access to all plant parameters,” explains Stephan Stärk, responsible for automation technology at WELTEC BIOPOWER. WELTEC uses high-quality stainless steel for the construction of the two 5579 cubic meter digesters, the storage tank and the 2 pre-storage tanks.
2013 ‚Organics Recycling Award‘ for WELTEC plant
WELTEC BIOPOWER has already implemented biogas projects for Eco Sustainable Solutions in the past: In Piddlehinton, west of Dorset, there is already a 1.6 megawatt biogas plant made by WELTEC. It was commissioned in 2009 and expanded two years later. A hygienization stage for the fermentation of food and agricultural waste has also been implemented there. “ The current order is therefore based not least on very good experience with the existing WELTEC plant: “ The 1.6 MW biogas plant received the renowned British ‘Organics Recycling Award’ in 2013 for its efficient use of energy,” reports the responsible Sales Manager Carsten Hesselfeld.
According to Hesselfeld, an important criterion for the award was not only the modern technology but also the sustainable overall concept. This includes, for example, the high-quality fertilizer output in accordance with the strict British PAS110 standards and the decoupled system waste heat for a neighbouring feed mill.
Contributing to the decarbonization of the heating sector
The study, published under the title “ The Bioenergy Review” (2023), comes to the conclusion that up to 183 terawatt hours of biomethane could be produced annually in the UK using biogas and biomethane from waste materials such as those supplied by Eco Sustainable. This amount could meet the annual gas demand of households across South East England, London and East Anglia.
