New biomethane plant for Co. Cork

Added: 2026-04-29

[00:00:01][music] >> Yes, we're very excited to be here today on a milestone that marks 12 [music] months of construction of this facility.

[00:00:10]This is going to be a large-scale plant that will process domestic and commercial food and garden waste, converted into renewable energy and bio-fertilizer. [music] We expect it to be fully operational by June of next year. We'll be taking in 90,000 tons of [music] organic waste into this facility and out of that we will generate 70,000 tons of liquid digestate that will be available to land banks and farmers [music] in the local area. It'll be nutrient rich and importantly it will be it'll be pasteurized so it'll be very [music] safe to use from a sustainability and biosecurity point of view and it will deliver air and water quality [music] quality benefits relative to using untreated manures and artificial fertilizers. So we'll be producing biogas that we will upgrade into biomethane and also biogenic CO2.

[00:00:54]>> [music] >> We'll inject the biomethane into the gas network where it will replace fossil fuel natural gas and the [music] biogenic CO2 will be available for use in local industry. Making a meaningful contribution [music] to our 2030 biomethane targets set out in the national biomethane [music] strategy.

[00:01:10]We've been looking at this site would you believe for over 10 years. We've met various commercial, regulatory and policy challenges along the way. So it's been a long hard journey so we're really delighted [music] to finally get it underway today and into construction. We have a couple more projects planned in ROI [music] we've one in planning and another one going into planning very very soon but we're also developing projects throughout the UK [music] and internationally as well. So our plant in Northern Ireland is very specialist plant. It processes poultry manure as a single feedstock and it's the only plant [music] in the world that is successfully achieving that and our plan is to develop a similar plant in Monaghan in the near future as well as well as developing more of those types of plants internationally. We welcome the government's efforts [music] to continue to try and develop an RHO and we understand that they're going to implement it as quickly as they can.

[00:01:53]However, [music] it is very very important that they do introduce a mechanism to protect indigenously produced biomethane from cheaper sources of biomethane that can come in from abroad. [music] So we really encourage the government to introduce the necessary protection to achieve that so that there can be the necessary [music] investment to see this industry finally grow in Ireland in a meaningful way. We just think that Ireland is a a very promising market for biomethane given the feedstock [music] in the country, the very good gas grades and the very good business environment.

[00:02:26]>> [music] >> And so you know we've we've been very ambitious plans [music] for Stream Bioenergy in the market. In terms of little Ireland itself, it's a perfect project [music] in this area of Ireland for the waste that we're attracting.

[00:02:40]Although there were elements of the [music] opinion that were negative, I don't actually look at the opinion as being negative [music] in its entirety and the reason is is because within the opinion the EU gave a very clear indication [music] as as to what path Ireland could take on the RHO to make it work which is really around restricting biomethane from [music] other countries that has received subsidy. What we would like to see from [music] the Irish government is is first of all to implement the RHO as quickly [music] as possible which is planned for this before the summer break [music] in the legislation, remove the multiplier which has been the issue that the EU have objected to but then within [music] that in the definitions and the terms and conditions of the scheme to tighten the definition [music] around subsidized biomethane.

[00:03:32]If we can do that, get the scheme [music] in place and tighten the definition, you're going to have a framework in Ireland that will really stimulate [music] the sector and hopefully try and achieve the targets that Ireland has set for biomethane by 2030.