A PLANNING application has been submitted for a giant anaerobic food waste digester near St Asaph.
The anaerobic digestion plant will be situated on the former site of an abattoir in Waen Gate, Rhuallt just off the A55 expressway.
The money-spinning facility will process up to 20,000 tonnes of food waste per year, including 12,500 tonnes of household waste from Denbighshire - currently sent to Lancashire.
Llanarmon Yn Ial’s county councillor Christine Evans, from the Denbighshire Partnership scrutiny is in favour of the facility.
“The local inhabitants are all in agreement as well and have been consulted mostly but we have asked the people of St Asaph are consulted as well,” said Ms Evans.
The TEG Environmental and energy company Alkane Energy has explained the anaerobic digestion is a natural process that breaks down food waste to create a biogas that can be used to provide renewable power.
This technology involved is similar to the digestive process of a cow’s stomach, and the process is very waste-efficient and enables 99 per cent recycling target for contract waste to be achieved.
Using the biogas from the Anaerobic digestive process, the generating system will produce up to 1MW of electricity, which is enough to power the facility and up to 2,000 homes.
“The site for the anaerobic digester has been confirmed to be coming near St Asaph but think we (St Asaph Town Council) should be kept consulted and up-dated on the developments,” said County Councillor Bill Cowie.
TEG Environmental is a technology company specialising in treating organic waste food, and have made sure there will be no odour from the digestion plant, by extracting the odorous air through a negative-pressure air management system and passed through a biofilter which cleans the air prior to it being discharged.
Alkane Energy is a clean tech ‘gas to power’ energy company that uses methane as a fuel for energy generation.
The site will cost £7.5 million and will serve Denbighshire, Flintshire and Conwy.