Weltec AD plant starts up in Germany

Agrar Reichenbach GmbH, a customer of Germany-based Weltec Biopower GmbH, has commissioned the first Kumac anaerobic digestion (AD) waste-to-biogas plant in Germany and, according to Weltec, joins 16 other Kumac AD plants operating in other parts of the world.

Agricultural company Agrar, like Weltec, is based in the Saxony region of Germany and specializes in dairy farming and the cultivation of feed crops, in addition to the dairy farm with 1,400 cows and breeding cattle that generate up to 72,000 tons of liquid manure and digestate a year.

Since 2006, Agrar has been operating a biogas plant with an electrical output of 845 kilowatts (kW). Its Weltec Kumac technology to boost and diversify that system was commissioned this month.

The Agrar biogas plant generates sufficient electricity each year to correspond with the annual consumption needs of around 6,000 private households, Weltec says.

“The introduction of modern technologies and systems such as the Kumac system greatly contributes to the recycling of nutrients and the conversion of liquid manure into compost, fertilizer, animal bedding or biogas substrate,” Weltec adds.

“In Reichenbach, the output of the Kumac process consists of around 25 percent solid and 20 percent liquid farm manure and 55 percent dischargeable water,” says Lars Bittermann, managing director of Agrar Reichenbach.

“The resulting solid matter and the nutrient concentrate are applied as organic, high-quality fertilizer to our own crops. In this way, long transport routes are avoided [and it] closes an efficient material flow cycle and the individual areas of our portfolio interlock perfectly.“