Deep in the gently rolling Mendip Hills of Somerset, in the southwest of
England, nestles a dairy farm with 150 years of cheese making heritage.
It lies only a few miles from the site of the world famous Glastonbury
rock festival but the cows clearly dig the music, because they not only
produce enough milk for some 14,000 metric tonnes of top quality cheese a
year - they also power the farm.
Wyke Farms is
the UK’s largest independent cheese producer and milk processor and is
supplied by around 30 surrounding farms as well as its own three dairy
units. In a £5 million (US$8 million) project that took five years to
plan and construct, an on-site anaerobic digestor (AD) system together
with two gas engines and associated ancillaries now power the farm and
dairy.
With Ermintrude’s help, the operation supplies both process heat and
electricity, enough to make this thriving business entirely supplied
with renewable energy.
Featuring three 4,600 m3 biogas digesters, which are supplied up to
48 times over any 24 hour period, some 150 tonnes of material per day
are fed into the cylindrical tanks. The installation is licensed to
convert up to 75,000 tonnes of biodegradable waste material from the
farm and dairy per year, but currently the farm processes only 55,000
tonnes annually and there are no plans to increase throughput capacity
at this time.
The feedstock includes both cow and pig slurry from the Wyke farms
dairy operation and piggery as well as dry materials such as rapeseed
plant stalks. These act as a substrate for the microorganisms to cling
to in order to support their growth.
In addition, whey permeate derived from the cheese-making process is
also used to generate biogas. However, as this material – aside from
water comprising largely of lactose and minerals - is relatively high in
sugar it must be fed in slowly to avoid a subsequent surge in gas
production.
Read more at Renewable energy world
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