“Quality grass” is to represent the bulk of the feedstocks required to feed a 42 GWh biomethane plant under construction in in Duleek, Co Meath due for completion before the end of 2026.

The project is based on the farm of Donal Hartford, who along with local farmer Brugha Duffy will also source the feedstock for the plant, which had been planned by the pair since 2018.

“It takes a lot of time, a lot of effort and you can’t do it on your own,” Hartford told the Irish Farmers Journal at the project’s launch on Monday.

“We engaged with the neighbours before it happened but it worked well,” he commented on the avoidance of even lengthier delays that judicial reviews have posed to similar projects across the country.

Maize silage, wholecrop and beet are among the feedstocks outside of grass silage that will be added to the plant once up and running.

Better

The bulk of it will be grass-based silage and the rest of the crops will be an add on, with the “longer the term the better” on contracted farmers supplies, Duffy said.

“But there is the capability there to work with farmers, if they only want it on an annual basis, if they only want to do it for one year, whatever suits them.

“That can build into crop rotation and whatever land they have available but there is a degree of flexibility.”

The prices paid for feedstock are to be negotiated at the beginning of the year between the two farmers and Carbon AMS, the plant’s anaerobic digestion partner.

Teagasc cost of production figures and current market prices are among the factors that will feed into the prices negotiated.

The chief executive of Carbon AMS stated that the entire project was “underpinned” by a 15 year gas purchase agreement with Alexion – a wing of the pharmaceutical manufacturer AstraZeneca.

“Without that, we wouldn’t have been able to develop it,” Richard Kennedy told the Irish Farmers Journal.

“It is going to require a significant tonnage of feed but this plant and our strategy in Carbon AMS is absolutely aligned with the national biomethane strategy.

“Anaerobic digestion has potential with waste but for the targets and the requirements that have been identified, there has to be agricultural products used.

“There are very few farmers we are involved with that are solely grass producers for anaerobic digestion and there is a balance.”