‘Scandalous’ lack of biogas funding

A director of a biogas plant in Kildare has shut down his facility, criticising the Government’s lack of support for the sector.

“We supplied gas to the grid for about ten minutes two weeks ago to show that we could do it and then closed up again,” Billy Costello, director of Green Generation in Kildare told the Irish Farmers Journal.

“The digester will be locked up for five or six years until some minister comes along and decides that something should happen.”

Costello criticised the lack of Government vision for the sector, saying that it could provide vitally needed jobs in rural Ireland, as work such as peat harvesting comes under pressure from climate change policy.

“The same fella that’s able to drive a tractor harvesting peat should be able to drive a tractor to harvest grass,” Costello said.

“I think it’s scandalous that the subsidy for biogas in Ireland is way lower than anywhere else in Europe.”

Anaerobic digesters (AD) are reliant on about one-third raw slurry and two-thirds raw silage to produce gas.

In contrast, Gas Networks Ireland (GNI) said that they were “delighted” to confirm that the first volumes of renewable gas have been injected into the gas network from Green Generation’s AD plant in Kildare and that they remained “confident that 20% of the gas on our network will be renewable by 2030.”

Gas Networks Ireland (GNI) previously said they would require up to 10t of grass by 2030 to meet their target of producing 20% of their gas from AD plants.

The idea of farmers exiting the beef industry and supplying grass to AD plants was suggested in the recent Climate Change Advisory Council’s annual review, but chair of the Council Professor John Fitzgerald acknowledged it was an expensive process.