Biogen Merevale Anaerobic Digestion Plant: Officially Open
24 October 2016
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.
Merevale AD plant’s official opening event (L-R: Biogen Chairman John Ibbett, Lord Henry Plumb and Biogen Chief Executive Julian O’Neill.)
Andrew Chisem, Director for Rolton Group, commented:
“It’s always great to see a project reach completion and it was a pleasure to see the Merevale food waste AD plant declared officially open. Rolton Group has been working with Biogen on various projects over the years and our engineering teams enjoyed using their expertise to help create this brand new AD plant. It’s wonderful to have been a part of this and other innovative Biogen projects which will generate truly sustainable, low carbon energy – enough energy to power thousands of homes a year.”
As part of the opening ceremony, Rolton Group were presented with CEEQUAL awards for both the Merevale AD plant and the Bygrave AD plant (near Baldock, Hertfordshire). These awards celebrate the high standards each AD plant achieved in assessments for sustainability strategy and performance, and the award for the Bygrave AD plant was an impressive milestone in itself as the first ever CEEQUAL sustainability award in civil engineering for a food waste AD plant in the UK.
To find out more about the Biogen AD plants that Rolton Group have provided engineering solutions for, visit our case study information page by clicking here.
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