As Anaerobic Digestion became more popular from 2010 onwards, this meant the construction of Anaerobic Digestion plants became more appealing, even on a smaller scale.
Because of this, we now see Anaerobic Digestion plants situated across the UK. As the Feed in tariff started to phase out, we have seen less small-scale construction over the last few years.
However, there are different types of plants that are slowly becoming more viable, allowing to the right licenses, and ensuring that authority guidelines are followed.
The locations of small-scale Anaerobic Digestion plants are commonly on farms, as a way of utilising the waste and turning it into profit. Because of this, these small-scale plants lend themselves to wherever the farms are situated. Although, as part of the planning process, accessibility is one of the main focal points.
For larger scale plants, we often see a more centralised location that acts a “hub”. This centralised plant lends itself to waste collection companies and their profitable work of collecting waste from other people’s homes, often at a cost, and then putting it into their digesters. Then making money from the output of the system. Meaning this set up is a viable and healthy business opportunity.
Locals may opt to bring waste to the location, rather than having it collected. When this is done, they may be charged a gate fee. The idea of this is to allow the plant to receive payment for the disposal of someone else’s waste.
Larger scale Anaerobic Digestion plants cost more to construct and certainly take a lot of time and planning to be fully operational. This is why larger Anaerobic Digestion plants are not typically on farms or in gardens. They are often found on purpose-built sites, as it would be ineffective to construct a multi-million-pound plant on a site that is not fully able to cope with any aspect of the process.