Agriculture hits renewable energy sweet spot

Space and slurry leave farmers well positioned to exploit renewable energy revolution

The combination of extensive land resources and access to a ready supply of energy crops and organic waste materials ensures that the agricultural sector is particularly well suited to the installation of renewable energy technologies.

That is the conclusion of a major renewable energy feasibility study undertaken by consultancy Bidwells for supermarket giant Asda and agricultural firm Fenmarc, which found that there was a strong environmental and financial case for investment in renewable energy technologies across the food supply chain.

The study assessed the Asda-Fenmarc supply chain - which supplies the retailer with about 100,000 tonnes of potatoes from over 100 farms in the UK - and found that the installation of renewable energy technologies such as wind turbines, anaerobic digestors, and biofuel powered vehicles could neutralise emissions from the supply chain, cutting its overall footprint by 21,575 tonnes a year.

"Agriculture has land as a resource, organic waste and the ability to grow crops [for biofuels]," observed Greg Hilton, renewable energy consultant at Bidwells. "All industries can benefit from renewable energy, but agriculture is certainly very well placed."

The study argued that farmers had a number of renewable options available, such as the installation of wind turbines on their land, development of energy crops to fuel their vehicles and the use of waste organic matter in biomass generators.

It mapped out two scenarios, one designed to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 23 per cent using an anaerobic digestor installed at Femmarc's pack house and a biofuel powered transport fleet and a second designed to deliver carbon neutrality through a larger anaerobic digestor, a biodiesel fleet and six wind turbines.

It concluded that both projects would deliver a solid return on investment with the low carbon option delivering an internal rate of return by 17 per cent based on a capital investment of £1.6m and the carbon neutral proposals calculated to deliver a rate of return of 20 per cent based on an upfront investment of £19.8m.

"These projects would be very profitable and would deliver returns on investment within around five years," observed Hilton. "We also found these types of initiatives really resonated with customers, many of whom felt that this was the type of thing supermarkets should be doing already."

He added that anaerobic digestors - which effectively act as mini-landfill sites trapping the methane from waste organic matter and burning it to drive a generator - provided a particularly strong business case for agricultural firms.

"An anaerobic digestor at a pack house can use all the left over waste material to provide energy and also charge gate fees for waste material from other sites," he said. "The technology also generates two units of heat for every one unit of electricity so feasibly a firm could use that heat through an absorption chiller to cool the facility or alternatively co-locate a greenhouse on the site, which would then use the waste heat."

Hilton admitted that currently the number of anaerobic digestors installed on agricultural sites "could be counted on one hand", but predicted that with the government signalling its intention to increase the renewable energy incentives supporting the technology interest in the concept will increase.

This article first appeared at BusinessGreen.com's Corporate Climate Response blog