Scottish Pig Farm to Use Pig Waste to Generate Electricity

Ruchlaw Produce just announced that they had received more than £500,000 in funding from the Scottish Government to develop a new technology that would utilise pig waste in order to generate electricity for one of their production facilities.

The proposed technology would the vegetable and pig waste to power the company’s Ruchlaw Mains Farm located near Stenton. The company has also proposed that the excess renewable energy, as part of the agreement for government funding, will then be sold back into the national grid.

Also the excess biomass produced from the energy generation would be used as fertilizer for the farmlands. The farm houses 3,200 sows which breed to produce roughly 70,000 pigs a year. The amount of waste generated from this type of breeding operation should power the entire farm, as well as put a significant amount of clean energy back into the national grid.

The company is also hoping to use the generator for the disposal of local vegetation which would be sent to landfills if not reused as biofuel. The company has said that it hopes to receive roughly 2,000 tonnes of vegetable waste collected from local vegetable growers and local authorities.

The whole process is expected to produce around 830 MW of electricity and 629 MW hours of heat for the farm. All left over electricity, not consumed by the farm, will be sold back to the government. Funding was received from the Scottish Government’s rural development fund, however the project will require additional funding to move forward.