Nephin Renewable Gas, the company bidding to become Ireland’s largest anaerobic digestion (AD) developer, has submitted plans for its latest project near Arklow, Co Wicklow.

The company, which is partnering with local dairy farmer Seoirse McGrath, is seeking permission to build a 90,000t AD plant, which will produce biomethane gas, liquid CO2 and biofertiliser.

The 10ac AD greenfield site is currently in grass and is located approximately 720m west of the boundary of Arklow town. The plant will connect directly to the gas network.

Feedstock

The plant will process up to 90,000t of feedstock annually. Around 12,000t of cattle slurry, 1,300t of cattle manure slurry, 23,000t of poultry manure, 25,000t of wholecrop silage, 1,300t of vegetable residues, 18,500t of drinks production residues and 9,000t of dairy production residues will be sourced to supply the plant.

As with Nephin’s other planned plants, the feedstock will be sourced close to the plant and it intends to work with farmers to grow the wholecrop, supply the slurry and manures and use the digestate.

Dairy farm

Seoirse McGrath is the local landowner and owns and manages a dairy farm. His farm is located 100m from the site.

The farm has been in the family's ownership since at least 1761.

The McGrath family was the overall winners of the Glanbia Quality Milk Awards in 2007 and Seoirse was the winner of the Wicklow FBD Young Farmer of the Future in 2002.

Digestate

The plant will include a digestate treatment system, which has a design capacity to treat a minimum of 78,000t of whole digestate per annum.

Following treatment of the whole digestate, around 8,000t of digestate fibre and around 17,000t of liquid digestate concentrate will be produced.

The treatment process will recover 53,000t of clean water, which will be reused on site for cleaning, with the remaining volume returned to the process as a feeding liquid.

The proposed development will employ approximately five full-time staff. It is anticipated that around 44 HGV trips will occur in and out of the site each day associated with the input of material and the export of bio-based fertiliser.