Members from the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine were among a 20-strong delegation that visited a UK anaerobic digestion (AD) plant as part of a fact-finding mission.
The Department is currently in the process of finalising the consultation on its €40m Biomethane Capital Grant Scheme, which is expected to result in an underspend.
The delegation visited the Moor Bioenergy facility near Grantham in Lincolnshire, the UK’s first unsubsidised bioenergy plant with carbon capture and storage.
Group
Participants included representatives from Teagasc, climate action regional offices, local authorities, engineering consultants, trade associations, utilities and potential offtakers from the manufacturing and food and beverage sectors.
The delegation also included representatives from the UK Department for Energy and Net Zero and the Europe-wide innovation agency Climate KIC.
Off-take
The facility produces biomethane under a 15-year off-take agreement with AstraZeneca and captures approximately 14,000 tonnes of biogenic CO2 annually for use in food and beverage production.
Combined with equivalent long-term agreements with feedstock growers, this provides the commercial stability required for the facility to operate without public subsidy, FuturBiogas state.
AstraZeneca recently announced a similar off-take agreement with Irish developers Carbon AMS and farmers Donal Hartford and Brugha Duffy.
The agreement will support the construction of a new biomethane plant near Duleek, Co Meath.
Commenting on the visit, CEO of Future Biogas Philipp Lukas said: “We are immensely proud that so many influential Irish organisations expressed such strong interest in our flagship Moor Bioenergy facility – the UK’s first industrial-scale, unsubsidised biomethane plant.
"The visit underlined growing demand from Ireland’s central and local government, utilities, industry and their collective advisers for an immediate drop-in substitute to fossil gas, both for baseload and dispatchable power."
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