www.energ.co.uk

ENER-G Natural Power Ltd – Turning potential liabilities into assets

Generating green electricity from harmful greenhouse gases such as methane, which is 21 times more damaging to the environment than C0₂ has enabled ENER-G Natural Power Ltd to become the leading independent landfill gas utilisation company in the UK.

In addition to its extensive UK experience, ENER-G Natural Power Ltd is now exploiting opportunities throughout the world, leaving the business well-placed to become a forerunner on the global stage.

The company is part of UK based ENER-G Plc (www.energ.co.uk), a sustainable energy technology business providing renewable energy and energy efficient management technologies to a global customer base, with operating companies in the UK, Poland, Norway, Netherlands, Hungary, as well as joint ventures in South Africa and Spain. In total, ENER-G has helped organisations reduce carbon dioxide emissions by more than 20 million tonnes. The business has a turnover of more than £70m and employs nearly 600 people in the UK and overseas.

Additional expertise

ENER-G’s energy from waste business, Energos, uses its own patented gasification technology to convert non-recyclable waste that would otherwise have gone to landfill, into useful energy. ENER-G is also active in the geothermal sector through its renewable heating and cooling energy business, Ground Source Solutions.

Landfill gas generation

Landfill gas is a finite resource that can be profitably exploited. The gas is extracted from landfill sites using a series of wells, then diverted to a central generating compound where it is combusted in landfill gas engines and converted into green electricity. This is exported to the national grid of the host country.

ENER-G’s unique modular approach enables local authorities or municipalities and private waste management companies to maximise the landfill gas resource by matching the installed capacity to the gas volumes extracted from the site.

The business’ ‘build own and operate’ procurement option, offers clients risk-free and full flexibility in their sites opportunity, by making its technology available without the need for capital outlay and also provides lucrative royalties in return for granting ENER-G the right to exploit the landfill gas.

This also gives the client added comfort that the active management of the gas extraction system is in the hands of a key player in the field of utilisation of landfill gas, effectively changing a problem to a substantial risk-free benefit.

Additionally, ENER-G’s wide-ranging expertise is employed on mines gas projects and can be actively transferred to any alternative biogas fuels source, for example anaerobic digestion.

Historically coal mining has been plagued by the constant risk of gas explosions, caused by the build up of methane. However developments in recent years have established that this source of methane gas is a valuable resource in its own right, opening up the potential to use Coal Mine Methane (CMM) and Coal Bed Methane (CBM). In the UK ENER-G has 6MW of installed capacity with approximately a further 10MW in planning.

International Portfolio

Landfill gas is one of the largest sources of methane emissions to atmosphere. The problem is particularly acute in developing countries where regulatory controls and management systems have traditionally been less effective in insisting on control systems being employed.

ENER-G’s global expertise is reflected in operational landfill gas businesses in the UK, Poland and Spain with projects coming on stream in 2008 in South Africa, Hungary, Mexico and China. Ongoing business development includes countries such as Bulgaria, Romania, Brazil and the United States.

The Future

ENER-G sees the ongoing opportunities overseas on landfill sites for the foreseeable future using the same well established business model that has proven to be successful in the UK. We will still deal with landfill gas in the UK however this market is now quite saturated and there is a reduction on “power price incentives” next year therefore focus will be on anaerobic digestion and mines gas.

ENER-G Plc
ENER-G House
Daniel Adamson Road
Manchester M50 1DT

Tel: 0161 745 7450
Fax: 0161 745 7457
Web: www.energ.co.uk

 

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