Biogen Merevale Anaerobic Digestion Plant: Officially Open

Rolton Group Director Andrew Chisem took great pleasure in attending the official opening of Biogen’s brand new Merevale Anaerobic Digestion (AD) plant – a state-of-the-art food waste recycling facility near Atherstone, Warwickshire.

The Rolton Group team have been working with Biogen, the UK’s leading provider of renewable electricity from Anaerobic Digestion (AD), providing engineering services on various projects since 2007.

The impressive new Merevale facility is the seventh in a network of AD plants delivered by Biogen across the UK. It has the capacity to process 45,000 tonnes of waste food every year from both household and commercial sources, enabling the generation of 2MW of green electricity for the national grid annually. The “waste” product from the AD process is environmentally friendly too, as it can be used as liquid fertiliser by the agricultural community. Biogen have been accredited by the Biofertiliser Certification Scheme, giving assurance to farmers, food producers, retailers and the local community that the “waste” produced at the end of the AD process is safe and suitable for use on farmland in place of chemical fertilisers.

Nigel Sheppard, Projects and Commercial Director for Biogen, said:

“The site at Merevale provided specific challenges associated with the ground conditions. To overcome this required a number of engineering solutions to be explored. Roltons worked collaboratively with both Biogen and their civils contractor Toureen to develop and design the most cost effective solution. This collaborative working by the team saw the plant built and commissioned in under a year.”

Lord Henry Plumb, former President of the National Farmers Union and also of the European Parliament was the honoured guest on the day who officially declared the Merevale AD plant open, with a plaque now in place to commemorate the occasion.