A SIX-FIGURE Government grant boost could help Wilton’s Centre for Process Innovation lead the way in bringing an energy-from-waste process to market.

The innovation centre has secured £880,000 from the Technology Strategy Board to develop small-scale anaerobic digestion (AD) - a process that turns farm and food waste into energy.

According to experts, AD has huge potential to generate Teesside jobs, slash emissions and boost UK energy security - but more working plants are needed.

John Barton (pictured), chief executive of Anaerobic Energy, who is also working on CPI’s project, said: “Nationally there is potential for 6-800 of these plants, including on Teesside.

“We need small-scale plants to make the technology work, which will hopefully help the banks overcome any uncertainty that they have.

“There is a lot of supply chain opportunities to provide equipment for these plants, it’s exciting stuff.”

AD has advantages for farmers and businesses that generate a lot of food waste, and who are struggling to pay soaring landfill costs by providing an outlet for their waste.

Studies have highlighted that there is an unmet market need for commercially viable AD plants at the 250kWe scale and below.

CPI’s project - Small Scale Anaerobic Digestion Technology (SSAD-TECH) - aims to slash capital costs of a small AD plant and deliver a process capable of using biomass feed streams to generate power, which can then be sold on by the user.

CPI’s director of sustainable processing and advanced manufacturing, Dr Chris Dowle, said: “We are delighted to be leading in this project, which represents an excellent opportunity to drive the evolution of this key technology.

“AD will play an important role in achieving a low carbon future, and the SSAD-TECH project makes the technology an achievable goal for smaller scale or rural businesses.”

See Tuesday’s Evening Gazette nebusiness supplement for an in-depth report on Teesside’s anaerobic digestion ambitions.