On farm permitting: seeking views on the EA's position

At the recent Biowaste Regulatory Forum, which Defra run to bring together groups interested in permitting and other environmental legislation in biowaste recycling, the Environment Agency presented a discussion paper on regulation for biogas plants on farms.

You can download the paper here – it is well worth reading if you are coming to the regulator day on Friday, or if you are interested in waste regulation and permitting for on-farm plants in general. It also provides a useful summary of regulations which apply to farm-based AD, and particularly on the transfer of feedstock and digestate between farms.

This work has come about as a result of discussion in the AD Strategy and Action Plan steering group. We are keen to see more appropriate levels of regulation for low-risk waste feedstocks on farms, to make it easier for farms to use wastes where possible. This is also a subject we intend to raise with ministers in the small scale AD roundtable meeting next month.

The discussion document broadly concludes that the EA see existing regulatory controls as light touch and appropriate. The only issue they have identified as a problem in regulation is a mismatch in the amount of digestate which could be produced by a plant operating under a T24 exemption (up to 15,000t), and the amount which could be stored under a single U10 exemption (up to 200t).

They have proposed the following potential remedies:

In the longer term it might be possible for the AD industry/EA to put a convincing case to Defra for a similar exemption for the on-farm storage of digestate produced from agricultural feedstocks or to increase the storage limit within the U10 exemption. This could be linked to construction and management standards under the SSAFO Regs.

In the shorter term it might be possible for the Environment Agency to get agreement for a regulatory position whereby permits wouldn’t be required provided certain criteria were met eg. link to current SSAFO Regs standards.

For now there are two key questions, which you can either answer at Friday’s meeting or by emailing me via matt.hindle@adbioresources.org – these are:

• How big an issue is the disparity between the T24 and U10 exemptions?
• Are there other issues with permitting for on-farm plants you would like to raise in response to the EA document?