Manure from 2,000 farmers will be needed to supply seven large anaerobic digestion (AD) plants under plans revealed today (12 June).

Greengate Biogas Partnership, which officially launched in Croke Park, Dublin, are aiming to bring the successful Danish biomethane model to Ireland.

By 2030, they aim to develop seven 250GWh AD plants in each region of Ireland. For context, the average size AD plant as set out in the National Biomethane Strategy is 40GWh.

Each of Greengate Biogas Partnership’s AD plants will require 600,000t of feedstock, 500,000t of which will be slurry and manures sourced from farmers within a 30km radius.

Farmers will be invited to form a feedstock cooperative to supply the slurry and manure, and also to use the digestate. Farmers are not expected to be paid for slurry, however. The developers do not intend to use purpose-grown feedstock such as grass silage, maize or other crops.

Targets

When fully established, Greengate Biogas will produce nearly 1.8 TWh per year of biomethane across multiple projects, representing approximately 3.5% of Ireland's current natural gas demand and 30% of Ireland's 2030 biomethane target established in the recently published biomethane strategy. This equates to enough gas to heat over 160,000 Irish homes or meet 20% of Irish industrial gas demand.

Greengate Biogas Partnerships state that they have selected many of the seven sites, with options agreements and heads of terms with land owners signed. The first projects are expected to be submitted for planning later this year, with construction anticipated to start next year.

Greengate is a new collaboration between the pension and investment fund manager Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners, Energex Renewables and Atlas Renewables.

Founded in 2012, Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners P/S (CIP) today is the world's largest dedicated fund manager within greenfield renewable energy investments and a global leader in offshore wind. The funds managed by CIP focus on investments in offshore and onshore wind, solar PV, biomass and energy-from-waste, transmission and distribution, reserve capacity, storage, advanced bioenergy, and Power-to-X.

Atlas Renewables is a local development team specifically established to develop biogas plants in Ireland while Energex Partners is a specialist commercial advisory practice serving the energy sector.