Two of Northern Ireland's biggest poultry producers have announced plans to build a power station which will produce electricity from chicken litter. Moy Park and O'Kane's chickens produce 250,000 tonnes of litter a year, and now the firms have formed a joint venture with another company to turn it into power.
Rose Energy is to ask for planning permission to build the £100 million biomass plant near Glenavy in County Antrim. They are also hoping that tax-payers will contribute to the costs and have pledged to address all concerns of the residents of the area in question. A spokesperson commented, "What we are talking about is a plant that will use agricultural by-products to generate 30 megawatts of electricity. Which, to put it into context, is about the amount of power needed for a town like Larne. It will obviously be treated as green electricity because the fuel streams for it come from renewable sources."
Farmers across Northern Ireland have struggled recently with the strict rules aimed at protecting Europe's waterways from farm pollution introduced through Directive 91/676/EEC, on the protection of waters against pollution caused by nitrates from agricultural sources. The Directive had particularly affected the poultry industry, who used a mixture of poultry droppings and bedding material as fertiliser; a practice which the Directive has gradually restricted.
