Co-Digestion - Is It Worth The Biogas?

In addition the biogas yield is routinely enhanced and this can further increase the economic viability of the digestion process.

The UK Water Companies are reputed to have currently around 30% of excess anaerobic digestion capacity as well as over 100 years of experience in operating anaerobic digesters and so it would seem an obvious route for them to utilise this excess capacity with other organic waste streams and thus enhance the value of the biogas they produce. This generates an obvious economic benefit, but co-digestion offers other, significant environmental benefits: renewable energy generation and carbon reduction associated with the biogas, landfill diversion for the feedstocks and resource recovery as fertiliser and compost deriving from the digestate.

It is the aim of this event to understand better the factors that will inform the debate on the uptake of co-digestion and identify the major knowledge gaps, the programme includes discussion of:

• The regulatory barriers currently in place, the measures being taken to dismantle them and what the final regulatory framework may look like. 

• What the biogas potential for co-digestion is in terms of the organic wastes available, how secure these sources are and how the economics associated with their use may change in the future. 

• The outstanding technical issues with regards to pre- and post-treatment technologies, ensuring the quality of the feedstocks and examining the robustness of digester design and operation for variable feedstock intakes over the asset life.

The future for co-digestion is looking positive and delegates attending this event will leave with a clear understanding of the current state of legislation; the technical issues that have been tackled and those that remain to be tackled. They will be able to assess the potential benefits that they may derive from their own waste streams and they will see successful examples of how co-digestion has been tackled in the UK and Europe.