Green energy project 'a lifeline for farmers'

One of the entrepreneurs behind the project, Simon Rigby, said it could revive the countryside by enabling farmers to sell crops that would be used to create electricity.

Leeds-based Mr Rigby, the former chief executive of Spice, the utilities support company, told the Yorkshire Post: "It's a real lifeline for farmers and a big help for the UK economy. It gives farmers long term stability."

Mr Rigby is a director of Farmgen, a green energy specialist which plans to make a 30m investment to create the biggest "energy farming" programme in Britain.

Farmgen uses anaerobic digestion (AD) technology, which mimics the working of a cow's stomach to produce methane-rich gas, known as biogas, which can be burned in a generator to produce electricity and heat.

The end product of AD is a natural fertiliser, called digestate.

The AD process uses normal farming techniques and equipment to provide energy crops such as maize and grasses.

The biogas created is used to fuel a combined heat and power unit to produce electricity for the National Grid.

Farmgen has completed the first phase of a 2.5m AD project at Carr Farm, near Warton, in Lancashire. Crops are being grown across the Fylde area of Lancashire to supply the Warton plant, which will start providing renewable energy to power more than 1,000 homes next year.

Mr Rigby said the next AD plant was planned for Silloth in Cumbria. In the longer term, Mr Rigby said he hoped to create 50 AD plants in Yorkshire, with 12 jobs expected to be created at each site.

He added: "I would expect to be building the first one in Yorkshire late next year. Yorkshire figures very highly in our plans."

He said East Yorkshire was particularly attractive because it had big farms and large expanses of flat land.

He added: "It allows them (farmers) to farm much more intensively, rather than just being subsistence farmers. It's going to breathe life into the countryside."

If energy is generated locally, it will reduce the need for electricity pylons, Mr Rigby added. There are 4,000 AD plants in Germany, where the sector is worth 500m a year. So far, there were only around 12 AD schemes in the UK, Mr Rigby said.

Farmgen's directors believe the UK could support up to 1,000 AD plants, with farmers using parts of their land to diversify into energy farming.

The plants would produce organic silage and help to protect land used for food production.

Farmgen is guaranteeing farms and sites that move into AD generation a fixed 10-year income stream, with an agreed level of crop production and land rental.

Smaller-sized farms, of around 200 acres, can come together with their neighbours to form energy co-operatives. A farm-based digester on arable land could use maize, grass silage, potatoes, turnips and bio-glycerol, a byproduct of the creation of bio-diesel.

Ed Cattigan, Farmgen's chief operating officer, added: "Renewables and other sources of energy will play a critical role in providing the country's power supplies over the next decade.

"There is a strong opportunity for many farmers in the UK to create a sustainable and stronger future for themselves by switching to energy farming."

THE SPICE OF LIFE FOR ENTREPRENEUR

Simon Rigby stepped down from the chief executive's role at Leeds-based utilities support services firm Spice in February this year.

Mr Rigby, born to farming parents, has other business interests including about 150 buy-to-let properties in Leeds and Preston.

Mr Rigby graduated from the University of Hull with a degree in economics and joined Yorkshire Electricity.

He was seconded to the board of The Freedom Group, and in 1996 led its management buyout from Yorkshire Electricity, starting with a single contract worth 3m. He renamed the business Spice, based on the mantra of society, people, innovation, customers and excellence.

Following rapid expansion it floated on AIM in 2004. The company achieved a main market listing in 2008.