Moray planning: Plans to build renewable gas plant between Elgin and Rothes attract objections over smell and road safety
A UK bioenergy firm will be grilled by councillors next week as they seek approval for a renewable gas plant near Elgin.
Developer Acorn Bioenergy is eyeing up a site in Longmorn for an anaerobic digestion plant. The project has attracted 51 objections from nearby locals, who raised a raft of concerns about the proposals.
Council planners have disputed Acorn Bioenergy’s claims the site is actually renewable, but the developer will be given a chance to defend their application next week.
What is an anaerobic digestion plant?
The Longmorn gas plant will work by using microbes to break down whisky distillery byproduct and agricultural feedstock to produce ‘biogas.’
This biogas is then refined into carbon dioxide and biomethane, the latter of which can be injected into the national gas grid.
A plant on Acorn Bioenergy’s scale has a capacity of 100 gigawatts (100,000 megawatts) of energy per year.
It also produces a byproduct called digestate, which can be used as a fertilizer.
The developer has not made clear what the CO2 would be used for, only that it is “acceptable for all uses” including the production of food and drinks.
Why Longmorn?
The developer selected the Longmorn site because of it’s proximity to nearby distilleries, which would provide over 80% of the fuel for the plant.
This is Acorn Bioenergy’s first of two projects in Moray, with a similar plant planned south of Buckie.
Acorn also have another project on the Black Isle, and are expecting a decision from Highland Council in summer of this year.
Once operational, they say the plant would provide enough gas to heat 9,500 homes or convert “almost the whole of Elgin from fossil fuels to renewable heat.”
Council planners have scrutinised the development, saying it will fail to achieve it’s net zero commitments and actually “produce more greenhouse gas than it removes”.
They cited the lack of clarity on what will happen to the produced CO2.
Planners also stressed the local economic benefit or need for the Longmorn site have not been properly demonstrated.
Acorn Bioenergy has offered a local contribution of between £150,000 to £250,000 alongside an annual £20,000 community fund, but planners have said this is not enough.
What have locals said?
Many of the 51 objections were against the development bringing an extra 83 vehicles a day onto an already “notorious” accident-prone stretch of the A941 Elgin to Rothes road.
Heldon Community Council stated it was “extremely concerned” about the potential odour from the plant affecting nearby houses.
One neighbour said the Longmorn location was not “sensible nor suitable” for the plant in an “already established village”.
Several others objected to the lack of local benefits coming to offset the negatives of the Longmorn gas plant project.
Representatives from Acorn Bioenergy will be asked to present their application to councillors on Wednesday, April 16.
In the hearing, they will have the opportunity to address the concerns raised by both council planners and members of the public.
Councillors will then decide if the development should go ahead.
