A significant element of ENGIE UK’s growth as a green energy company has been our investment in innovation. As part of work to find more streamlined and sustainable ways to produce green gas, we have set up several ‘mini’ anaerobic digesters.

If you’ve ever seen an anaerobic digestion (AD) plant, you may know that the digesters are gigantic tanks with domes on which work 24/7 to turn organic waste into green energy. Although their size enables us to supply energy to hundreds of houses and businesses, it can be challenging to perform optimisation experiments at such a large scale.

Using ‘mini’ digesters enables us to try out different options to help produce more, home grown, green gas economically without risking the biology and performance of our main digesters. Doing this in a 3m3 digester (rather than a laboratory) allows us to mimic exactly what would happen in our large-scale digesters. Latest test topics include:

  • Tailoring digester biology to better cope with specific feedstock blends
  • Using different feedstock ratios and pre-treatments
  • Trying out various ways to manipulate gas quality to maximise asset utilisation

These digesters allow us to test different AD methods in controlled laboratory conditions so we can produce the best outcomes possible – be that environmental or financial.

In line with our turnaround offering, we are providing other AD companies with access to the results from the ‘mini’ digesters, allowing them to test their optimisation theories and improve the output of their biogas plants too. If you have an AD site and have often wondered “would this idea work here” – please get in touch, as we may be able to provide the answer without you having to risk your own biology to find out.