Irish renewable energy firm Kedco has received planning permission to develop a 12MW waste wood biomass-gasification facility at a site in Enfield, North London. Permission for the platn, which the company expects to cost £45 million to develop, was granted earlier this week (August 31) by Enfield council. The planning approval means that Kedco can now begin securing funding for the plant. Click here for full story

The UK's emerging anaerobic digestion (AD) industry was thrust into the limelight this week after two major new projects that promise to demonstrate the viability of the waste-to-energy technology were unveiled. First up, energy firm Farmgen broke ground on the first in a wave of anaerobic digestion plants, designed to provide farmers with an additional revenue stream from 'energy farming'……. In related news, airport operator BAA announced yesterday that it has signed a deal with food management firm Vertal that will see travellers food and drink waste turned into fertiliser for use on local farms. The company said that food waste from Heathrow's daily 180,000 passengers will be collected separately and sent to Vertal’s recycling facility in South London where it will be composted within 72 hours. Click here for full story

Proposals have been unveiled for a multimillion-pound biomass plant on an industrial site near Fort William which could create up to 20 jobs. But the plant, which would operate round the clock, has already given rise to worries from the local community about emissions, noise and visual impact as well as serious concerns about its viability and sustainability. Click here for full story

Renewable energy firm Farmgen has started building work on the first of two anaerobic digestion tanks for its Carr Farm facility near Preston which is the first project to be developed under its plan to expand the UK's on-farm AD capacity. The plant at Wharton in Lancashire is designed to be the ‘spearhead' of the Lancashire-based company's investment plans, which include proposals for plants across Lancashire, Cumbria and Staffordshire. Click here for full story

Plans to build a biomass plant in Dundee have been lodged with the Scottish Government. Forth Energy wants to build a renewable energy plant, which includes a 300ft chimney, at the Port of Dundee. The company claims the plant will generate enough power to provide 86% of Dundee with electricity while reducing the city’s carbon footprint and putting it at the forefront of the renewable technology revolution. If approved, the development could generate about 300 jobs during the construction phase, with about 60 permanent jobs once it is completed. Click here for full story

The Renewable Heat Incentive (proposed April 2011) will be a major focus at EBEC 2010. Under the proposed RHI a new market for Biodiesel will be created as it will can be blended with heating oil to provide a real growth opportunity for the Biodiesel sector estimated at 900 million litres. This will stimulate significant production volumes again in the UK and sustainable growth for the industry as many investors have left this market over the last two years. Click here for full story

Entrepreneur Robin Parker is planning to bring biomass hopeful NET Energy Group to AIM by raising up to £20 million for the company, which he plans in five years to build into a ‘renewable power utility’ using wood pellets to generate 50 megawatts of power a year. Click here for full story

Adler and Allan recently hosted a ground-breaking biofuels discussion forum at the Fire Service College in Gloucestershire to highlight the issues arising from the potential introduction of bio-components to all elements of the fuel supply chain. The forum covered both national and European legislative changes and the recent and projected amendments to fuel specifications whilst exploring the impact that these changes have on fuel management and housekeeping requirements. Click here for full story

…… Tesco says it has implemented a very efficient ordering system to reduce waste, but what waste there is can be re-used, recycled, or turned into energy. Leftovers fit to eat are distributed to those in need by a charity called FareShare. Waitrose also works with FareShare, says a spokesman, and 115 branches generate renewable energy from food waste. Click here for full story

New Energy Technologies, a wood- chips-to-pellets supplier to the power industry, is planning its debut on the Alternate Investment Market next month to raise £5m tfor new plants. Robin Parker, NET's chairman, said he is bringing the fledgling biomass company to the stock market to raise capital to build the latest wood-generation plants, allowing it to supply local users as well as the UK's big power stations with renewable fuel. Click here for full story

The Government has given the go-ahead for a large expansion in bioenergy power projects across the UK: removing a key obstacle to financing projects by guaranteeing levels of support under the Renewables Obligation for 20 years after completion. Projects fuelled by wood and wastes have a crucial role in helping the UK meet its renewable energy targets. There are currently over 5,000 megawatts of dedicated biomass, energy from waste, gasification, pyrolysis and biogas that have been stalled in the development process. Click here for full story

Out of the frying pan into the Met’s tyres; in a slick operation the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) are recycling waste vegetable oil to power the vehicles which deliver their groceries. The move is part of a drive by the MPS with energy company Convert2Green and 3663 First for Foodservice - which provides the food and catering supplies - to cut emissions of harmful greenhouse gases. Click here for full story

The U.K. government removed an obstacle to financing biomass power plants, which burn living matter to generate electricity, saying it would support the industry through obligations on utilities to use clean energy for the next 20 years. The Department of Energy and Climate Change said it will “grandfather” its backing for anaerobic digestion and energy- to-waste plants. For biomass developers, the government also extended its support to all fuel costs. It initially planned to support only non-fuel costs, including construction. “Today’s announcement will come as a great relief and follows many months of intense discussions between the industry and government,” Gaynor Hartnell, chief executive of the Renewable Energy Association, said in a statement. “This should unlock some 13 billion pounds ($20 billion) of much-needed private investment in the sector.” Click here for full story

Government response to the consultation on grandfathering biomass under the Renewables Obligation. This provides the certainty that investors have been looking for for electricity from dedicated solid and gaseous biomass, energy from waste, anaerobic digestion and advanced conversion technologies such as gasification and pyrolysis. Support will be fixed for 20 years, subject to the 2037 end date of the RO. Also published today are proposals for robust and credible standards to ensure that the biomass used for electricity generation in the UK is sustainable, delivering real carbon reductions and increased energy security. Click here for full story

Viridor chief executive Colin Drummond loves rubbish. There's a very good reason why: the waste arm of £2bn utility company Pennon is paid both to take it away and to sell it on after processing – either as electricity or recycled material…. From the noise surrounding wind farms and newer technologies like anaerobic digestion, many would assume that Britain gets most of its renewable energy from these sources. In fact, about the same amount of electricity sent to UK homes currently comes from incineration as wind farms – around 1.5pc. And waste bosses like Mr Drummond want to see 6pc come from incineration by 2015 and up to 20pc by 2020. Click here for full story

Phosphorous is an essential nutrient for plant growth, along with nitrogen and potassium. It is a key component in DNA and plays an essential role in plant energy metabolism. Without it, crops would fail, causing the human food chain to collapse. Phosphate production is predicted to peak around 2030 …… The solution could lie in recovering phosphate from organic waste that currently ends up being sent to landfill. …. The coalition government has already pledged to lead the UK towards a zero-waste economy, and a development programme of anaerobic digestion (AD) plants is a major step in that direction.…… Chambers is now urging the government to stimulate rapid investment in technologies such as AD plants that will enable phosphates to be reused in agriculture, rather than sending a finite resource into landfill. Click here for full story

The UK government has announced that it is drawing up an action plan to deliver a “huge increase” in anaerobic digestion (AD) projects, and is inviting input from stakeholders on how this can be done in a cost-effective way. Click here for full story

British Gas and Adnams Bio Energy have completed the construction of an anaerobic digestion (AD) plant in Suffolk, which they claim will be the first in the UK to use brewery and local food waste to produce renewable gas for injection into the national gas grid. Click here for full story

….. Stobart said its new joint venture Stobart Biomass Products, alongside Cumbria-based A.W. Jenkinson, which supplies the UK renewable energy market with waste wood and other raw materials had seen improved visibility of orders over the past two months “with further viable projects identified”.
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Controversial £1.7 billion proposals by Forth Ports and Scottish & Southern Energy to build four ¬woodchip-burning power plants may be in danger of being rejected after several Scottish Government ministers appeared to speak out against them. Click here for full story

A new power plant could be built at a docks that would help dispose of 160,000 tonnes of wood and waste every year. Initial plans for a biomass combined heat and power plant have been submitted to Kent County Council by Biomass Power Plant Ridham Ltd, a joint venture formed by German energy firm subsidiary Evonik New Energies and renewable energy specialist HES Biopower. Click here for full story

Generating heat and electricity from waste could help Scotland meet its renewable energy target, a report said yesterday. The Scottish Government has pledged to generate 11 per cent of all heat and half of all electricity from renewable sources within ten years. The report by the Sustainable Development Commission Scotland, which advises the Scottish Government, says 17 per cent of Scotland's heating and electricity requirements can be met by treating waste to create energy. Click here for full story

Several daily lorry journeys will be needed to help provide fuel for a £360 million renewable energy plant earmarked for Leith docks. Developer Forth Energy said 23 heavy goods vehicles a day would travel in and out of the biomass plant, despite the majority of the wood chip coming in by ship. Click here for full story

Chesterfield BioGas (CBG), part of Pressure Technologies plc, is to supply Centrica with one of the UK’s first biogas upgrading plants for the production of biomethane from waste for direct injection into the national gas grid. The order, worth over £0.6 million, has resulted from a partnership between Centrica, Scotia Gas Networks and Thames Water to process the gas naturally produced by waste water at the Didcot Sewage Works. Click here for full story

Households in Scotland will be expected to separate food waste from other rubbish so it can be used to generate electricity under new SNP plans due to be brought in by 2013. Councils, as well as businesses such as supermarkets and restaurants, will have to dispose of food separately from other refuse within three years, under the ambitious Zero Waste Plan, published yesterday (9 June). The Scottish Government said that it hopes the mandatory changes in the way rubbish is collected will help cut down on the amount of waste being sent to landfill. Click here for full story

Renewable energy schemes helped boost profits for waste management group Viridor, which rose by 34.8% to £55.4m. Chief executive, Colin Drummond, said an expansion of energy-from-waste (EfW) schemes could offer major opportunities for growth with parent company Pennon, which also has major interests in South West Water, announcing a 14.2% increase in underlying profits to £189m. Click here for full story

Danish anaerobic digestion technology provider Xergi is building an anaerobic digestion plant in Scotland. The EUR8 million agreement has been entered into with Scottish and Southern Energy (SSE). The anaerobic digestion plant will be built at Barkip, North Ayrshire. It is expected to be operational for energy production in early 2011. Click here for full story

Future Capital Partners, a £6 billion alternative investment boutique, has tapped Alan Cross to serve as business development manager. In his new role, Cross is responsible for developing and strengthening relationships with key accountancy and intermediary firms among FCP’s client base in Scotland and Northern Ireland. He is also tasked with the marketing of FCP’s range of products, the most recent being Future Fuels. Launched in January, Future Fuels is an investment partnership that will fund and build a renewable transport fuel plant in the North of England. Click here for full story

Forest industries in Scotland are bucking the recession by experiencing huge growth over the past five years, a conference will hear today (2 June). Environment secretary Richard Lochhead will describe how forests now provide 31,000 jobs and contribute £670 million to the economy. They have attracted more than £250m in business investment over the past five years, and the burgeoning woodfuel sector has seen a 300 per cent increase over the same time, he will say. Click here for full story

Green energy supplier Ecotricity has revealed it has started to deliver "green gas" made from composted organic waste to British customers, making it the first UK energy firm to successfully provide gas generated using anaerobic digestion technologies. Click here for full story

Labour MSP Malcolm Chisholm is demanding answers from the Scottish Government over controversial plans for a biomass plant in Leith. Forth Energy is expected to submit plans for the giant £360 million renewable energy facility within the next few weeks. Click here for full story

Both the UK and Scottish governments have set themselves ambitious targets for increasing the share of electricity generated from renewable sources and have provided strong financial incentives……. Speaking at the annual meeting of the Scottish Society for Crop Research in Dundee, Professor Martin Tangney said that other countries were far more positive about the benefits that biofuel could bring and were already reaping the rewards. Click here for full story

Investors and project developers have claimed that proposals launched last month by the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) to guarantee support for anaerobic digestion (AD) plants under the Renewables Obligation will help bolster market confidence and secure project funding. However, more needs to be done to support and encourage investment in dedicated biomass projects through the range of financial incentives, according to renewables financial advisor Compass Business Finance. Click here for full story

A restaurant, brewery and a hotel are among businesses across Scotland that will boost the use of renewable heating. Grants totalling £1.1 million from the Scottish Biomass Heat Scheme have been awarded to 16 projects to reduce energy costs, secure jobs in forestry and deliver annual savings of over 7,000 tonnes of carbon - equivalent to taking 3,000 cars off the road. Click here for full story

In a bid to make anaerobic digestion more cost effective and to bolster confidence in one of its bi-products, the digestate, plant operators are now able to undertake "rigorous" testing to meet a written standard which proves their digestate is safe to be spread on land. Click here for full story

Any scotch drinker worth their malt will tell you that whisky packs a punch. But now one distillery on the Scottish island of Islay is taking this quite literally and using it to generate electricity. Bruichladdich Distillery hopes to solve several energy problems in one go by installing a new type of anaerobic digester, says owner Mark Reynier. Click here for full story

In a 2009 Directive put in place by the European Commission, the criteria requiring greenhouse gas reductions applied only to biomass sources for transport fuel. Now European energy firm Vattenfall Europe has taken it upon itself to identify measures that guarantee the sustainability of its solid biomass sources. By doing so the company has taken a leading role in the defining and sourcing of sustainable solid biomass on a large scale. On behalf of Vattenfall Europe, renewable energy company Ecofys has concluded a sustainability assessment of routes for bioenergy sources that are truly sustainable. Click here for full story

Residents of Leith have launched a Facebook campaign against plans for a £360 million biomass plant. Opposition is growing to Forth Energy's plans for the giant renewable energy facility, which will include a smoke-stack up to 100 metres high. Click here for full story

Opcon, the energy and environmental technology Group, has won its first order from Italy for a steam-powered Opcon Powerbox for production of green electricity. The customer is Ekipo s.r.l., an Italian engineering company that develops, produces and sells turn-key solutions for the process industry, including plants that take care of organic waste. Delivery of the steam-powered Opcon Powerbox will take place in November 2010. It will be integrated in an installation for burning organic waste designed, developed and produced by Ekipo for a customer in Italy. Click here for full story

Energy giant E.ON is set to build an energy centre near Exeter airport to supply zero-carbon housing development, Cranbrook, with energy from a biomass combined heat and power (CHP) district heating network. Click here for full story