Netherlands-headed bioenergy technology specialists HoSt has disclosed that a Microferm ‘Green Gas’ plant supplied by the company to the Loonen dairy farm in Merselo, Limburg, the Netherlands has successfully injected its first biomethane to the Dutch gas grid. The project is also the first ‘cooperative Jumpstart’ project for HoSt.
The contract was signed for this its first ‘cooperative Jumpstart’ project in February this year. Jumpstart is an initiative of the Netherlands-headed dairy cooperative major FrieslandCampina and facilitates dairy farmers who want to realize mono-manure digesters plants on their own dairy farm.
Microferm is an anaerobic digestion (AD) technology concept developed by HoSt specifically designed for farmers who want to process manure. Depending on the size of the farm, the electrical capacity ranges between 60 and 150 kW.
Apart from the production of electricity and heat, the biogas can be upgraded for grid injection using technology from Bright Biomethane, the dedicated biogas upgrading subsidiary of HoSt – the Dutch SDE+ (Stimulation of Sustainable Energy Production) subsidy with a fixed fee paid per Nm3 biomethane for a period of 12 years offers an attractive incentive.
This project shows HoSt’s longstanding experience with and knowledge of engineering and building manure digesters, said Sjaak Klein Gunnewiek, Account Manager.
According to HoSt, the project had a very smooth start-up: one and half weeks after filling the digester with substrate the plant was already able to inject the first biomethane into the natural gas grid. The Merselo Microferm plant digests 100 percent manure and the biogas upgrading system has a capacity of 40 Nm3 per hour of biomethane.
