Renewable energy specialist ENER-G has welcomed the UK government's 'u-turn' on financial support for small-scale anaerobic digestion (AD) plants, which means that facilities between 50kW and 5MW will continue to receive Renewables Obligation Certificates (ROCs).
In its review of support for renewable energy published in July, the government had proposed removing ROC support for small new AD plants from 1 April 2013.
Derek Duffill, Group Managing Director of ENER-G said: "This is a welcome decision that will do much to expand the AD industry, which is under-deployed in the UK. Customers now have the flexibility to select either feed in tariff or ROC support, which helps provide long term certainty and confidence to investment decisions."[Page Break]
ENER-G has considerable experience of building, operating and financing major biogas projects across the UK and Europe, including a growing portfolio of AD facilities in the UK.
ENER-G also welcomed the government's July decision to continue maximum ROC support for Advanced Conversion Technologies, such as the gasification process provided by its clean energy recovery from waste business Energos. Duffill says that this will unlock much needed new generation infrastructure, including its own £450 million investment pipeline of facilities, which have planning consent and will create up to 500 new jobs. [Page Break]
Energos opened the UK’s first full scale gasification plant to operate on household waste on the Isle of Wight in 2007. This was the first waste fuelled gasification or pyrolysis plant operator in the UK to qualify for ROCs in October 2010. The company is receiving maximum double ROCs for the electricity generated from the renewable portion of the residual household waste (typically around 50 per cent).
For more information, visit www.energ.co.uk
Small scale anaerobic digestion
Paul Boughton