Italian group BelEnergia has announced plans for two waste recovery plants, which will be located in the town of La Almunia de Doña Godina, in Zaragoza; and in the municipality of San Esteban de La Litera, in Huesca, reported CE NoticiasFinancieras.
The two plants, which have been declared of regional interest by the Council of Government, represent an investment of around €62.8 million euros and will generate 154 jobs during the construction phase, while 40 jobs will be created when they come into operation.
According to data provided by the company, the breakdown of the total investment is divided into €32.8 million euros for the plant in La Almunia de Doña Godina, in which the Bailón Group is expected to join the company with a 10% stake.
The San Esteban de Litera centre will receive €30m.
In terms of employment, each of the plants will generate 77 jobs during construction, while in the operating phase there will be 20 jobs at each center.
The La Almunia de Doña Godina plant will have a surface area of 132,939 square meters on land adjacent to the La Cuesta III industrial park.
The plot has already been awarded by the City Council of La Almunia.
The activity will focus on waste treatment. Specifically, 90% will be chicken manure from poultry farms in the area.
The San Esteban de Litera centre will also work with local farms, but in this case manure will be valourised in its 124,700 square metre facilities.
In both cases, the process will focus on achieving a consistency and composition that favour the anaerobic digestion process to generate biogas.
These products will be mixed with waste from other industries, such as whey, wastewater slurry or slurry, among others.
All of them will also come from local companies, for which BelEnergia has initiated contacts with local farms with the capacity to supply a sufficient quantity of these substrates to guarantee the continued operation of the activity of both plants.
At the moment, the Italian group will work with 14 supplying poultry farms, most of them located in the municipality of La Almunia, as well as in nearby towns such as Ricla, Alpartir or Calatorao.
In San Esteban de Litera, the main substrate will also come from livestock farms, mainly in the same municipality or nearby towns. In this area alone, there are 622 farms within 10 kilometres of the BelEnergia plant.
The biogas produced at the two plants in Aragon will be stored in gasometers from which two gas streams will be produced.
The project expects that one of them will be diverted to cogeneration engines, so that the entire facility will be self-sufficient in energy.
The second stream will be taken to the upgrading unit, where CO2 will be extracted to obtain a biomethane stream (CH4) with a purity level of 98%, which will be sufficient to be injected into the distribution network.
In addition, the extracted CO2 stream will be sent to the module where this gas will be purified, liquefied and bottled for commercialisation.
BelEnergia announces two new plants in Spain with €62.8m investment
