Pilot AD plant with consistent high grass load since commissioning

The first Agraferm AD plant was erected as a pilot in the town of Hohenwart, not far from the companies headquarter in Pfaffenhofen a.d. Ilm. The customer, a non-profit foundation operating aproduction facility for handicapped people near-by, uses the produced heat at that facility. The produced electrical power is fed into the public grid.

Another aspect is that the feedstock is supplied by the farm, on which the special production facility resides, and which is operating under bio-dynamic farming principles. This entails a high use of rye-grass, which is used as the prime feedstock for the AD plant. The design with the patented agitators in a digester made of concrete with a flat concrete roof is well suited for such high drymatter feedstock. The biogas is stored in a double membrane gas pocket in a space in a no longer used farm store.

The pilot is proves the unique Agraferm design, which is characterised by its optimum output relative to the space the plant takes up. This is made possible by the high dry matter organic loading rate and high degradation of the feedstock thanks to the patented agitators in smaller size tanks. This in turn allows for low energy consumption and low maintenance costs, which – besides the cost of feedstock, are the main operational costs of any AD plant.