Leiths

Concrete supply to the £12m Biogas Plant at Downiehills Farm, near Peterhead, started late last year and is expected to be finished later this month, with Longside supplying over 6000m³. The whole project is a carbon neutral source of energy understood to be the first of its kind in the UK.

When completed, the plant will produce 660m3 of renewable gas hourly.  This is sufficient to heat 3,500 homes annually in the Peterhead area, displacing fossil fuel natural gas with a sustainable renewable gas.

A sustainable solution to our energy needs

As part of the facility’s operations, an innovative CO2 capturing facility will be in place. The CO2 captured here will be sold for use in the industrial market and will be used in various applications such as fizzy drink carbonation. Digestate material left over from the biomethane production will also be utilised with no material being diverted to landfill. This digestate material will be removed by farm vehicles to be spread on the land which the feedstock has come from.

The digestate is a nutrient rich organic fertilizer which restores the organic matter and soil composition of land which it spread on. This digestate contains nitrogen in a form that is readily available for crop uptake, and can help reduce reliance on other (industrially produced) sources of nitrogen. Inorganic phosphate fertilisers are derived from non-renewable sources and will become more expensive as increasing pressures are placed on limited current supplies.