Clarke Energy speeds Agrivert in producing renewable power in Oxfordshire

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Clarke Energy is assisting Agrivert to produce renewable energy from Oxfordshire Council’s waste. Agrivert’s new Wallingford Anaerobic digestion facility is helping to deliver a sustainable solution to both waste treatment and renewable energy production in Oxfordshire. The anaerobic digester processes food waste collected from Oxfordshire County Council and other local sources and produces biogas, a renewable fuel. The biogas is used in acombined heat and power (CHP) plant, achieving fuel efficiency in excess of 84%.

The anaerobic digestion facility delivers a number of benefits including:

• Food waste is diverted from landfill and is used to create enough renewable electricity to power 6,000 average UK homes
• Agrivert’s digester produces biogas, a renewable fuel which is converted at high efficiency to electricity and heat using a gas engine CHP plant installed by Clarke Energy
• Clarke Energy installs, commissions and tests engine’s connection to the grid in record time.

The Wallingford anaerobic digestion facility is able to treat 45,000 tonnes of food waste originating in Oxfordshire each year. It uses two GE power and water, high-efficiency JGMC416GS-BL Jenbacher gas engines. The biogas engines are capable of producing a combined output of 4.7 MW of renewable energy in the form of 2.4MW_e electricity and 2.30MW_th heat. The heat is used to keep the digesters at the correct temperatures for the plants operation, and to pasteurise the food waste, hence ensuring the fertiliser quality meets the highest standards. The electricity is in turn exported to the local electricity grid delivering renewable power to the surrounding area.

The biogas CHP plant was commissioned in December 2012 and passed G59 grid connection tests in a record time for Clarke Energy. The biogas engine arrived on site on a Saturday and by Wednesday had been installed, commissioned and passed G59 grid connection tests. This speed was essential for Agrivert to meet the cutoff date for being awarded the higher rate feed-in-tariffs from Ofgem.

Ron McIlwraith Engineering Director at Agrivert said:

Thanks to everyone at Clarke Energy and all involved sub-contractors for the fantastic effort in enabling us to comply with the requirements of claiming higher rate FITs.

 

The achievement of this goal, two days ahead of the deadline, provides physical evidence that Clarke Energy are truly a customer focused, quality organisation. This extends throughout the organisation from your own involvement which was very much appreciated, through the project management and procurement chain to all of the staff and sub-contractors on site who have worked in miserable cold and wet conditions to pull it all together.

 

A huge thank you, and congratulations on achieving this important milestone”

Alan Fletcher, Main Board Director of Clarke Energy said:

We are delighted to be expanding our relationship with Agrivert, one of the UK’s leading anaerobic digestion companies, to deliver a high efficiency biogas CHP system in Oxfordshire. Our focus going forwards will be on ensuring the company’s satisfaction by delivering high levels of after sales support through our gas engine service network.