The conversion of farm waste products into renewable energy is presenting farmers with the chance to generate extra revenue in a sustainable way. Major business opportunities in sustainable development are about to open up for farmers and landowners – and now is the time to start planning to make the most of them. Recent Government guidance on planning and climate change has created a win win situation for farmers looking to use their land in new ways.
Now, they can use their farm’s waste products to fuel renewable energy plants, that can in turn power eco friendly residential or commercial developments on or adjacent to their land.
The Planning and Climate Change (Statement) issued by the Government in December, supplements its Planning Policy Statement 1, and deals with the need to provide more housing, but at the same time minimising emissions from new developments. It is also a step towards the requirement to increase the proportion of UK energy coming from renewable sources in the UK.
Under the guidance, renewable energy and local community energy schemes built alongside new housing projects would reduce the carbon emissions from those schemes. The Statement also specifies that regional planning bodies should ‘provide a framework to focus substantial, new development on locations with good accessibility, and where energy can be gained from decentralised energy supply systems’. It adds: “Planning authorities should have an evidence-based understanding of the local feasibility and potential for renewable and low carbon technologies, including microgeneration, to supply new development in their area”.
This opens up a huge opportunity for farmers. Businesses can now plan to diversify by developing part of their land – as long as they include sources of renewable energy. Those sources could include wind turbines, solar panels or ground source heat pumps.
Biogas power plants are highly suitable as they turn waste products such as slurry or manure into energy and are ideal solutions for large livestock farms. This technology is likely to become extremely important in the generation of renewable heat and power within the UK. Farmers who have either a readily available source of slurry or manure – waste products from the food processing industry, or crops grown specifically for anaerobic digestion, such as maize or grass silage – and are close to existing built-up areas are perfectly placed to develop biogas plants.
Biogas plants can provide combined heat and power (CHP) to existing developments or - better still - to new developments created on brown or green field sites, next to the landowners’ holding. It is an ideal way for farmers to dispose of such waste products, more so because of limits on muck-spreading in order to minimize the effect of nitrates leaching into surrounding ground. Other renewable energy solutions that are particularly relevant for farmers include biomass plants, that use renewable sources of energy such as short rotation coppice willow or miscanthus.
The onus is now on local planning authorities to set targets for the use of renewable energy in new developments, and make the use of such energy a priority in bringing forward development areas or sites. It will probably take between one to two years for the guidance to be incorporated into regional planning policies – but farmers should be acting now to make sure their potential development sites are included in Local Development Frameworks (which are replacing the adopted Local Plans).
The new guidance means landowners should be looking again at potential development sites that may have been passed over previously because they did not comply with planning policy. It’s now worth talking to developers to discuss the potential to bring these development sites forward on the back of a renewable energy supply provided by the rural landowner.
The UK is lagging behind its European neighbours, especially Holland, Denmark and Germany, when it comes to localized microgeneration of energy. The technology exists and has been proven to be economically viable – and it appears that the UK government is now prepared to accept that such sources are not only economically viable, but should also form a fundamental part of the planning system.
The ability to take a waste product, such as food waste, green waste or indeed animal waste products, and turn it by way of an anaerobic digester into heat and power, seems like an extremely sustainable way to deal with a waste product that would otherwise be dumped in landfill. This will also ensure that the properties supplied with this facility are developed on a carbon neutral basis.
With Fisher German’s expertise in renewable energy and specialist planning we are best placed to advise landowners and developers.
For further information, contact Stephen Rice 01295 226297 email stephen.rice@fishergerman.co.uk
