A new gas plant in North West England will produce bio-methane from the waste products of a nearby creamery. The £10 million project planned and built by the British company Clearfleau is the first of its kind in the UK, although general food waste has been used for energy production for a while.

After the Lake District Biogas plant reaches full capacity within the next two months it will process about 1,650 cubic metres of effluent and whey, producing about 1,000 cubic metres of biogas per day, which in turn will produce around 5MW of thermal energy.

At least 60 percent of produced gas will be used to power First Milk’s Aspatria creamery, where the cheese waste products come from. Local private customers and businesses will be able to use the rest. Clearfleau says that 1,000 cubic metres of biogas would be enough to power 4,000 homes; so, working backwards, that means about 1,600 homes will be powered by cheesy by-products.

As an eco-friendly power producer, the plant will be subsidised by the UK government under the Feed-in Tariff and Renewable Heat Incentive programmes. For the next 20 years, the facility is expected to receive £2 million per year in grants and generate £3 million per year in revenue and cost savings.