WRAP and NNFCC publish status report on UK anaerobic digestion industry

The use of anaerobic digestion as a way of generating renewable energy and reducing waste is growing in importance to the farming, food processing and waste sectors in the UK and more widely.

This document reports the baseline of the infrastructure for anaerobic digestion (AD) in the UK. It was established by research carried out by WRAP - the Waste and Resources Action Programme - and The NNFCC, in response to the Government’s AD Strategy and Action Plan published in June 2011.

Authoritative knowledge of the current state of the infrastructure for AD helps to enable better investment decisions. In addition, it will improve the understanding of the current size of the AD industry in the UK and, going forward, it will facilitate enhanced monitoring of growth in the industry.

The current AD infrastructure in the UK is summarised as follows:

• There are currently 214 anaerobic digestion facilities in the UK
• Overall capacity to process more than 5 million tonnes of material per year
• Total installed generating capacity of over 170MW of electricity

The report breaks down the industry by waste fed plants, farm fed plants and sewage treatment facilities - with the latter currently being the most common type of AD facility in the UK. Case studies of each type of plant are given and the report also identifies over 180 AD facilities which have either applied for, or received, planning permission.

The full report can be downloaded from The Official Information Portal on Anaerobic Digestion, www.biogas-info.co.uk.