ABP Lurgan pioneers new technology

A carbon neutral, energy positive wastewater treatment technology, has been pioneered at ABP Food Group's Lurgan site and is now being rolled out at food and beverage plants across the world.
By The Newsroom
Published 24th Mar 2018, 08:18 BST
Updated 24th Mar 2018, 09:20 BST
Pictured at the pioneering waste water treatment plant at ABPs Lurgan site are from left Seamus Kenny, General Manager ABP Lurgan; Michael Murray, Managing Director of NVP Energy and ABPs Sustainability Manager, John Durkan.Pictured at the pioneering waste water treatment plant at ABPs Lurgan site are from left Seamus Kenny, General Manager ABP Lurgan; Michael Murray, Managing Director of NVP Energy and ABPs Sustainability Manager, John Durkan.
Pictured at the pioneering waste water treatment plant at ABPs Lurgan site are from left Seamus Kenny, General Manager ABP Lurgan; Michael Murray, Managing Director of NVP Energy and ABPs Sustainability Manager, John Durkan.

The technology was developed at the National University of Ireland, Galway and is licensed to NVP Energy.

As a leader in sustainability ABP saw the potential of NVP Energy’s ground-breaking Low Temperature Anaerobic Digestion technology and they embarked on a trial project at its Lurgan site to prove the energy positive waste-to-methane gas technology could be successfully deployed commercially.

ABP’s sustainability manager John Durkan, who oversaw the commissioning by NVP Energy of the flagship sludge-less wastewater treatment plant, said the NVP plant delivered solid, reliable performance right from the outset.

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Mr Durkan pointed out that the NVP Energy has built up exceptional expertise in this ground-breaking anaerobic digestion technology and this experience and knowledge-bank led to them working with the company to deploy the full-scale system at ABP Lurgan. The treatment plant at Lurgan now processes the entire flow of wastewater produced on the site, turning that waste into biogas energy, ideally suited for heat and electricity generation, enough to offset ABP Foods’ gas usage on site by 40%.

“ABP is always on the look out to support and enable innovative and technology driven projects that will solve problems, so this project ticked all our boxes. It’s carbon neutral, sustainable, odourless, cutting edge technology, low cost of treatment, no sludge production with clean waste water discharge. On top of that, it delivers high quality methane gas for use on site.

“It’s great to be proven right as NVP Energy are now deploying the technology to other large blue-chip food and beverage companies,” he added.

NVP Energy Managing Director, Michael Murray, said: “NVP Energy is delighted to work with a company of the calibre of ABP Food Group, as our technology is aligned with the company-wide ethos of ‘doing more with less’.

“ABP understood what we are about right from the start, and vice-versa. Their hard-won production experience and our technological know-how enabled a very successful partnership and project. Together, we ensured the project was a complete success and this has enabled NVP Energy to go from strength-to-strength, while ABP reaps the benefits of an energy and cost-saving technology,” added Mr Murray.

In 2017, ABP Food Group became the first company globally to receive triple certification from the Carbon Trust for the third time. The Carbon Trust standard is the world’s leading independent certification of an organisation’s impact on the environment, and verifies operational implementation in the areas of energy consumption, CO2 emissions, water use and waste output. The Carbon Trust has been working with ABP for over six years, as the company has striven towards excellence in its sustainability standards.