Cumbria is powering ahead as the UK’s leading centre for ‘energy farming’ with the announcement by Farmgen of plans for a third £3 million rural electricity generating plant in the county.
Plans to create the Anaerobic Digestion (AD) plant at High Head Farm, Ivegill, follow proposals for a similar development at Murray House Farm in Cumwhinton, as well as the company’s site currently under construction at Dryholme Farm, Silloth.
Farmgen, the UK’s leading specialist in ‘energy farming’, has embarked on a £30 million investment drive nationwide.
A planning application for the Ivegill project is due to be submitted to Eden District Council.
Building work is well underway on Farmgen’s £3 million AD plant near Silloth. It is scheduled to go live later this year, producing enough energy to power more than 1,000 homes.
The company also has an inaugural site at Carr Farm, near Preston in Lancashire, where construction is nearly complete and it is scheduled to start generating electricity over the next 6-8 weeks.
The new AD plants will use crops from fields surrounding the participating farms to create ‘biogas’, which is then used to generate electricity. This is then hooked up and supplied to the National Grid.
AD is commonplace across Northern Europe – with around 5,000 plants in Germany alone. Farmgen believes the UK’s farming sector could sustain up to 1,000 similar plants – using marginal land to diversify into ‘energy farming’.
The Farmgen team, which is actively looking for more potential sites in Cumbria and across the North of England, has been working on the Ivegill plan for more than a year with owner Jonathan Stamper.
He said: “This is a good example of farm diversification and providing a sustainable incremental income to help keep the farm commercially viable.
“Crops to power the plant would be supplied locally and the scheme will provide a boost to the rural economy.”
Farmgen Chief Operating Officer Ed Cattigan added: “The latest application we have submitted for High Head Farm underlines our great belief in the huge potential that exists for farm-based AD in Cumbria.
“The county is already playing a leading role in our vision for farm-based AD in the UK.
“And ever-increasing numbers of farmers across Cumbria are expressing an interest in the concept and what it can deliver for them.
“We are also showing that, as the country moves over to ‘green’ energy as part of the drive towards a low carbon economy, there is a strong opportunity for many farmers to create a sustainable and stronger future for themselves by switching to ‘energy farming’.
“We are in talks with farming operations across the whole of the UK to create similar plants and we are hoping to reveal more planned sites in the near future.”
Farmgen’s £30 million investment plan is the biggest ‘energy farming’ expansion programme in the UK.
The company is also planning to apply for permission to build another £3 million plant on a farm next to Kirkham Prison in Lancashire.
It is in discussions with the Prison Service to supply the Category ‘D’ open prison’s energy needs, using crops grown by inmates at its farms.
The news comes after it was announced that Marks & Spencer has signed a five-year contract to buy the energy generated from Farmgen’s inaugural plant at Carr Farm for a fixed price, as part of its ‘Plan A’ commitment to procure more renewable energy from small-scale energy sources.
Farmgen, which is based in Blackpool, was founded in 2009. Its board includes Simon Rigby - former boss of FTSE 250-listed utilities company Spice - who today farms 2,000 acres across the North West of England.
He netted a £22m windfall last year when the utility services group Spice was sold to private equity investors Cinven for £251m and is backing Farmgen’s ambitious plan to set up AD plants on farms across the UK.
He said of AD: “It's a real lifeline for farmers and a big help for the UK’s rural economy. It gives farmers long-term stability and is going to help breathe life into the countryside.”
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