Rural Generation
Business Development Director, Michael Doran, Londonderry

The Benefits:
An environmentally sensitive system for dealing with agricultural waste is soon to be launched to the farming community in Ireland. The Net Present Value* of this amounts to £147,600.

The Company:
Rural Generation was established in 1995 and has been at the forefront of developing environmentally sensitive solutions to countryside management problems. It uses the process of Photosynthesis as the basis of renewable energy. This form of energy capture can be utilized by short rotation Coppice Willow.

Rural Generation has planted 43 hectares of this tree to pioneer the conversion of this energy with a 100KWe Gasifier. This is then connected to the electricity grid. The heat generated is used to heat buildings, residences and to dry grain. The gas is used as a supplement fuel to the generator so there is no wastage.

The Project:
In Northern Ireland 200,000 tons of mushroom compost is currently taken to land fill. This is becoming an untenable situation and Rural Generation identified the growing need to develop a new environmentally sensitive alternative that would tackle the issue of agricultural waste management for good. Rural Generation Limited set about investigating a solution that would entail developing a boiler that could burn mushroom compost or chicken litter. A difficult task as mushroom compost is approx 78% water but by mixing coppice willow the process has been proven. Crucially however, emissions have to be controlled.

Making it Happen:

  • MTP
  • Invest NI - Innovation Credit
  • Invest NI - Compete Programme

After a meeting with MTP, gas emission testing was arranged through the Air, Land and Workspace Monitoring Service funded by an Innovation Credit. After a site investigation, a full day’s testing was carried out by connecting probes to the flue of the new manual feed boiler system. The entire cycle was tested to get readings from start-up to full combustion.


The Result...
The results of the emission testing have helped Rural Generation further refine their process and improve its efficiency. Rural Generation is now using the Invest NI Compete programme where they have developed an automatic feed system and further testing is due to take place in advance of its market launch.

Michael Doran:
“Having tried unsuccessfully to find a company capable of carrying out emission analysis we contacted MTP for advice. They speedily set up a meeting with the Air, Land and Workspace Monitoring Service.The work was efficiently completed and MTP helped us find a solution”