Cleanzine: your weekly cleaning and hygiene industry newsletter 4th December 2025 Issue no. 1189
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Beer and whiskey industry residue biomethane plant to operate in Ireland from mid-2026
German manufacturer Weltec Biopower is building a biomethane plant for Irish company Evergreen Agricultural Enterprises at the company's headquarters in Monasterevin, County Kildare.
The plant, which will go into operation in mid-2026, will ferment production residues and by-products from the Irish beer and whiskey industry - readily available materials that are unsuitable for animal feed.
The €50 million project will take just 11 months to construct. It will comprise four digesters and one stainless-steel secondary digester, each with a volume of 4,900cu.m, which will be mainly used for fermentation. Three additional tanks will be used to store liquid substrates.
Three rotating long-axis agitators and three submersible motor agitators in the tanks will support the effective digestion of the substrate mix. The biogas will be collected in the digesters with double-membrane roofs and processed into biomethane using membrane technology. It will then enter the public gas grid 20 metres away via the feed-in point.
Once commissioned, the plant will produce around 1,300 standard cu.m of biomethane per hour - equivalent to around 110 GWh of energy per year. The annual output of 65,000 tonnes of digestate will be stored in a covered concrete lagoon and delivered to farmers separately as liquid and solid fractions.
"Despite its size, the plant, with an annual processing capacity of 165,000 tonnes, will be built in just six months of pure construction time," says Tobias Gerweler, managing director of Weltec Biopower. “Construction is proceeding according to plan and mechanical completion is scheduled for the end of this year.”
Evergreen managing director Patrick Meade explains the thinking behind the project:
"The fact that German manufacturer Weltec Biopower was awarded the contract to build the largest plant in Ireland to date was due not only to the technical advantages mentioned above, but also to the short delivery times.
“This will also enable Ireland to achieve its ambitious expansion targets for biomethane production: the government aims to produce 5.7 terawatt-hours (TWh) of biomethane annually by 2030. To achieve this, existing biogas plants for biomethane processing would have to be expanded, and technically mature plants such as the one built by Evergreen in Kildare would have to be planned and constructed.
"The location offers logistical advantages, among other things: On the one hand, it is well connected to the M7 motorway. In addition, the national gas network for direct biomethane feed-in is in the immediate vicinity.
“The decision not to use grass silage was a conscious one, so that we would not be competing with the livestock industry. A combined heat and power plant (CHP) installed on site generates around one Megawatt of power for the operation of the plant and supplies heat for the digesters.”
https://www.weltec-biopower.com/index.html
13th November 2025