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Founding member and director undertakes a feasibility study into small scale production of biodiesel as part of a Masters Research degree.
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We visited Terry de Wynne, the British Sage of Biodiesel, in Belfast.
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5 of our members have attended the celebrated LILI biodiesel
training course.
As a Co-operative, we decided to pursue a biodiesel venture and to try to build our own plant, recycling 'useful' equipment owned by another founding member and director.
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Meanwhile, we applied for a grant with our local community enterprise group, Foothold, to help with the purchase of equipment and running costs. We were offered the grant on condition that we also got the Cleanstream grant as match funding.
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The CleanStream grant was a debacle, as after submission and tentative approval of the application it was decided that projects involving energy from waste eg. biodiesel, were no longer eligible.
Foothold, bless 'em, stuck with us - 3 cheers for Bob McBride, who made it his mission to find out all he could about biodiesel and loves our idea of "Liquid Solar Energy".
Then, the director with the 'useful' equipment left the Co-op and the rest of us decided to draw a line under the DIY idea which wasn't going anywhere, despite our investment of over £20,000 which had practically left us bankrupt.
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Persevering, we had to resubmit the Community Enterprise Grant to suit the revised equipment plan and seek out additional match funding to cover the costs of the containerised packaged unit that Eurodiesel sell. But when this rocketed in price overnight from £40k to over £60k we had to abandon this as a plan.
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The industrial unit where we planned to locate the biodiesel was by now brimming with UVO that we had been collecting. It was evident that the unit was too small - we needed new premises as well as different equipment.
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This decision didn't go down well with the Environment Agency and despite gallant efforts by our local EA officer, the legal beagles in London decreed that we had to apply again for a new permit - another £2,500.
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So, we persevered and carried on running
the main work of our Co-op – to facilitate and install RE
technologies (wind, solar, biomass, hydro) at the same time as setting up the
biodiesel plant. We continued collecting UVO and with the help
of
Biofuels
based in Cambridge and
Goat
Industries, we got our biodiesel plant!
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We had
grant funding for some of the equipment from CREATE Enterprise,
Foothold, some from Enfys and some from Naturesave – the rest
(approx (£40,000 we raised with loans, including members’
contributions). |
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We had
the official launch of our plant in October, when we were also
awarded an Action Earth prize from the Environment Agency. We
have also won a EuroSolar award for our services to renewable
energy - see our
Sundance News page for more details! |
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We
started sales of biodiesel on November 1st 2004 and we
have achieved EN14214 – the European Quality standard for
biodiesel. We are running
training courses
to help others to
replicate our work and to share the secrets of our success.
At
present we have clocked up over approximately half a million
miles on biodiesel from sales, with customers choosing to blend
our 100% biodiesel from 5% mixtures up to 100%. We are
planning to make modifications to our plant to improve it's
efficiency and increase production to meet growing demand.
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Another World is Possible............If we all strive to make a difference |
