Every day, the biogas plant feeds 12,000 kWh of electricity into the public grid. In addition, the plant supplies up to 500 kW of heat to small consumers and to the site of the former Paracelsus Clinic in Reichenbach via a heating network.
The plant‘s main business consists of the delivery of biogas via a 3.2-km raw biogas pipeline to the heating plant of Stadtwerke Reichenbach for the base load supply of flats and social facilities. The amount of electricity generated each year corresponds to the annual consumption of around 6,000 private households.
High-Quality Fertilizer for Plant Cultivation
"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. 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,“ explains Lars Bittermann, Managing Director of Agrar Reichenbach GmbH.
"This closes an efficient material flow cycle, and the individual areas of our portfolio interlock perfectly. From the cultivation of feed crops to dairy farming to the utilization of the liquid manure in the biogas plant and the processing of digestate into fertilizer and water, all components have their place."
Support from the European Agricultural Fund
The scalable modular system can be used from an amount of 70,000 t of liquid manure or digestate a year. Should the processing needs increase, several Kumac lines can easily be combined.
"The processing here is almost fully automated, which also minimizes the amount of personnel required," says Managing Director Lars Bittermann.
"By the way: Operators who decide to set up a system can receive funding from the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development," adds Nico Sudbrink, the responsible process engineer at Weltec Biopower.
