Microgrid / Hybrid co-location solution delivers energy security and sustainability for UK commercial food waste management company BioteCH4

Because of the limitations of the electricity supply grid in the area, the Holme Bioenergy site has no mains electrical connection, and operates isolated from the network. This constraint means the site infrastructure power requirements were met using diesel power generation.

The rising cost of diesel fuel, alongside the cessation of the Government red diesel rebate scheme in April 2022, meant the cost of power on site was excessive.
Although as a renewable energy producing site, the net CO₂ production is significantly negative, however, using continuous diesel power generation is not ideal.

To reduce operational costs and improve their CO₂ sustainability, BioteCH4 considered alternative means of generating their electrical load on-site.

Russ Baker, Chief Technical Officer, said, “As a group, we are committed to becoming as carbon neutral as possible, as quickly as practicably possible. This means we have looked at the way we do things, our existing electrical connections, power sources and have investigated more innovative ways of generating our own electricity but without increasing our carbon footprint.”

The sites existing gas connection meant a gas-to-power solution could be realised. As such, a CHP solution using gas engines to produce electricity and heat as hot water for on-site consumption offered a credible energy transition pathway. 

However, with no electrical connection to the grid, gas engines are not particularly good at operating on their own in island mode configuration. Load steps are poor unlike diesel generation and can easily cause the gas engine to trip. This presented several challenges. If the gas engines were to experience an engine trip, additional resilience would be required to ensure a continuous seamless supply of power at site.