Farmgen seeks green light for £4m plant

FARMGEN, the Lancashire company which uses farm crops to generate electricity, has submitted plans to build a £4m Anaerobic Digestion (AD) power plant.
 
If Farmgen gets the green light from Wyre Council, the plant at Moss House Farm in St Michael’s on Wyre will generate enough energy to power more than 1,500 homes.
 
The development is part of Farmgen’s £30m expansion plan. The Blackpool-based company already has one flagship plant up and running.
 
Moss House, a 320-acre farm, was recently been bought by Farmgen Founder Simon Rigby for more than £2m.
 
The Moss House Farm plant would use crops from local fields, converting them to electricity to be supplied to the National Grid. It would generate 1.2MW of electricity.
 
Farmgen’s inaugural AD operation at Warton near Preston, was officially switched on earlier this year and is now generating 800kW of electricity – the equivalent of powering more than 1,000 homes.
 
Its second plant at Silloth in Cumbria began operating earlier this month. The 1.2MW unit is now generating enough electricity to power more than 1,500 homes.
 
The company is looking to have 10 state-of-the-art AD plants up and running by 2015 – with sites earmarked across Britain’s rural communities including Lancashire, Cumbria and Dorset.
 
Ed Cattigan, Farmgen’s commercial director, said: “Our aim is for Moss House Farm to play an important part in our growth plans, as part of the revolution in green energy.
 
“Lancashire is our home and we believe that rural communities across the county can benefit from farm-based AD.”