Kirk to develop new on-farm AD plant

Kirk Environmental, part of Kirk Group, is set to complete its part of a new on-farm Anaerobic Digestion plant for the production of electricity from crops and livestock manures at the Wilcross Farm in Gisburn.

The plant will consist of one 300m³ Concrete Digestion Tank complete with a 1430m³ industry-leading Biodome double membrane roof.

The crops and livestock manures treated at the AD plant will come from a total of four farms surrounding the site: Wilcross Farm, Watt Close Farm, Yarlside Farm and Lane Ends Farm.

The plant will be constructed adjacent to a group of modern agricultural buildings at the rear of Wilcross Farm, and the other three locations will be no more than four miles from the plant.

Wilcross Farm was chosen as the location for the AD facilities mainly for its central location in relation to the other farms, but also because of good transport links around the area, the absence of any significant visually sensitive receptors and its close proximity to a suitable connection point to the National Grid.

When the plant is completed it will allow for all the forage produced at the farms, together with the slurry provided by their cattle contract to be treated in the Digester.

Overall the plant will treat a total of approx. 10,000 tonnes of feedstock per annum. This will create a total of 500Kw renewable electricity which will be exported to the National Grid.

The land used to grow the feedstock for the Anaerobic Digester will be re-fertilised each year using the digestate bi-product produced during the AD process. The project is set to commence in September 2013 and will take approx. six months to complete. Kirk has recently completed a number of on-farm Digesters across the UK and has a pipeline for many more as Agricultural AD Plants are being adopted across the UK as part of the Government supported drive for sustainable renewable energy.