Bioenergy

New technology is turning sludge from waste water into valuable bio-fuel with environmental and financial benefits for a Southland meat processing plant.

It's a bubbling fluidised bed boiler, well-proven overseas for its ability to handle low quality fuels. The 8.5MW unit was installed at Silver Fern Farms' Finegand plant by Energy For Industry under a build, own, operate agreement.

A 50kW wood pellet-fired boiler is proving considerably cheaper than electricity for heating the Bay of Plenty‘s 30 bed Titoki Healing Centre.

Fully automated and fed by a 3-tonne hopper topped up by the truckload, the system operates virtually hands-free.

Installation cost around $80,000. That compared more than favourably to the other main option, heat pumps, at around $90,000. Running costs are even more competitive at about $4,400 annually, almost a third of the costs estimated for running heat pumps.

This is an up-to-date list of all the biodiesel producers participating in the Biodiesel Grants Scheme.