Ecogas biogas facility opens

New Zealand’s first commercial scale anaerobic digestion plant opened on 20 October 2022.

The Ecogas Reporoa Organics Processing Facility is the largest food waste processing facility in New Zealand and the country’s first utility scale anaerobic digestion facility to take organic waste and create all sorts of useful products:

• CO2 to help grow vegetables in a nearby glasshouse

• Organic fertiliser to make farmland more productive

• Renewable gas to cook meals in restaurants, cafes and at home. At its full capacity, the Ecogas facility will produce renewable energy, biofertiliser and renewable carbon dioxide from 75,000 tonnes of inedible food waste and other organic residues. It is expected that the Reporoa plant will produce 200 tonnes per year of nitrogen in the form of biofertiliser and 185,000 GJ of energy in form of biogas from 75,000 tonnes of organic waste.

“The opening of this facility is an exciting and important step towards reducing both the amount of waste that goes to landfill and also greenhouse gases. Almost half the weight of a kerbside rubbish bin is organics and we are aiming to reduce that considerably by turning it into renewable resource in Reporoa,” said Parul Sood, Auckland Council General Manager Waste Solutions.

The facility is next to T&G’s Reporoa tomato glasshouse. Rod Gibson, T&G Fresh Managing Director says a glasshouse of its size needs a similar amount of energy as about 2,000 homes.

“With Ecogas’ Reporoa Organics Processing Facility we can use the energy it produces to create enough heat to keep our tomatoes at optimum growing temperatures, as well as utilising its carbon dioxide to allow our plants to breathe. The heat, carbon dioxide, water and sunlight all combine so T&G can grow high quality, environmentally and economically sustainable tomato crops for Kiwis to eat and enjoy,” he said.

Ecogas is also working with Firstgas to produce a sustainable renewable natural gas that can be used in the gas grid without any modifications to the gas infrastructure or customer appliances.