Harnessing biogas reaps rewards

The Methagri factory is a methanization farm which produces biogas as a by-product. They wanted to use this as a fuel to generate power to send back to the grid, turning the waste product into additional revenue.

With such a plentiful fuel source, Methagri signed a 20 year contract to send up to 1400 kW per month/year of converted biogas energy back to the grid. They needed to find an optimised solution that could provide the power they needed to maximise their profit margins, and maintain the commitment they had agreed to.

When two of their three biogas-fuelled generators broke down, reducing output; revenue generation also dropped by 66%. This left Methagri facing penalties for being unable to fulfil their contract with the grid and facing an inefficient biogas production process that could severely impact profit margins.

Methagri were left with only one option available, to burn the by-product generated and pay the penalties.

Even without fines, Methagri were losing around 5,000 EUR per day. They desperately needed to replace the broken generators as quickly as possible to minimise lost revenue. Aggreko meanwhile, had the equipment and expertise to not only get Methagri back up and running, but to generate more revenue from their by-product.

We replaced Methagri’s two broken generators with one of our gas generator's, supplying an output of 900 kWe to convert biogas and allowing them to get back up and running to meet their contractual power agreements with the grid. One of our generators provided the same output as the two older generators Methagri had, but we didn’t stop there.

We learn and adapt to provide our customers with the best possible solution engineered with their specific needs in mind. We knew that using our newly launched technology with market leading efficiencies - the Next Generation Gas (NGG) generators – would use less gas per hour, which would result in improved cost efficiency for our customer.

So, we presented Methagri with the option of our NGG solution that optimised the amount of biogas used, generated more power per hour, and would maximise their revenue potential.

Switching to the NGG technology saved them an estimated 100 cubic metres of gas per hour, resulting in an improved cost efficiency of 30%.

More power generated with less biogas used per hour means improved profit margins for our customer, Methagri.

Switching to our NGG technology allowed them to produce more power while using less biogas. Not only that, but with the new generators, 400 kW/h more power was produced with 100m3/H less of gas, which maximised additional revenue.

Over the two year contract, it's estimated Aggreko will have managed to save Methagri roughly 70,000 EUR. We delivered reliable power technology that gives them the piece of mind that they can fulfil their contract with the grid, and avoid environmental fines for burning the biogas – helping them to make the most from this by-product.

This increased revenue stream can be invested back into the farm, rather than in costly CAPEX for new equipment.