SMART TANK · Farm and Agriculture Stabilised Thermophilic Anaerobic Digestion

EU farmers face significant costs related to the management and disposal of on-farm organic waste arisings such as manures and slurries through having to comply with specific EU legislation such as the Nitrates Directive and the Landfill Directive. Rising waste disposal costs have been cited as a contributing factor to the estimated closure of 7,000 EU farms per annum. Our consortium consists of five SMEs who manufacture and supply a range of equipment for anaerobic digestion (AD) systems in agricultural, wastewater treatment and municipal waste management markets. Whilst AD-based markets are growing and are expected to continue to grow over the next 5 years and beyond, they are dominated by larger enterprises - eight companies provide 80% of the municipal solid waste market in the EU - which makes competition on a cost basis difficult. Existing technologies for the anaerobic digestion of agricultural waste at the farm-scale are based on mesophilic processes and have a number of associated limitations, such as the requirement for codigestion with a high percentage of energy crops, a high capital equipment cost and a long payback period. The Smart-Tank project will develop a reliable thermophilic AD system with closed-loop control that will give us a clear technology differentiated product and offer the following benefits to farmers: • Standalone operation. • Demonstrate minimum biogas production levels of 90m3 per tonne feedstock from codigestion with a minimum manure or slurry content of 60%. • Have a payback period of less than 6 years. The development of the Smart-Tank system will allow our SME consortium to compete in the growing market in Germany, France and the UK for agricultural AD technology and the estimated €2.13Bn EU market for the AD of municipal solid waste.