Four Northern Irish companies team up to turn “waste-to-watts”

In the UK, four leading Mid-Ulster companies have established a collaborative cluster with the aid of Queens University Belfast and facilitated by Centre for Competitiveness / Smart Grid Ireland.

The purpose of this pilot project is to unleash the Net-Zero innovation potential of their businesses and achieve their Environmental, Social and Governance objectives. The Mid Ulster partnership has been formed between Tobermore Concrete, CemCor, Dale Farm and RSC Group. This novel approach was enabled by the Centre for Advanced Sustainable Energy (CASE) at QUB, which indicated that farming wastes could decarbonise our existing gas grid with profound repercussions for Northern Ireland’s capacity to reach Net Zero.

In this study, researchers lead by Prof. David Rooney at Queen’s University determined that transforming farm livestock manure and grass silage into biomethane could help to meet a significant percentage of Northern Ireland’s energy demand.

For the four companies, the proposed innovative “waste-to-watts” approach has the potential to promote: (i) the adoption of low-carbon farming practices; (ii) the development of low-carbon agri- food products; (iii) decarbonised fuel for transport vehicles; (iv) decarbonised construction products.

The vision of the Mid-Ulster companies is ultimately to establish a full-scale plant that will produce enough biomethane, not just for their own use, but also for injection into the NI gas grid.