Promoting localised small scale biogas plants in Iceland

On 1st October 2024 Value4Farm partner Orkídea organised a meeting with key stakeholders from the agricultural and horticultural industries in South Iceland on the feasibility of localised small scale biogas production. Orkídea´s Sveinn Aðalsteinsson and Helga Gunnlaugsdóttir explained the process of biogas production and presented three scenarios for small and micro scale biogas plants. The event was followed by constructive discussions of the opportunities and challenges especially as Iceland has no real history of biogas production and the use of gas as an energy source is generally very limited mostly due to the historically abundant availability of cheap hydro and geothermal energy. The Orkídea team also shared lessons learned from Value4Farm emphasising also how biogas production is an active area of innovation with new technologies e.g., IoT, machine learning and AI creating opportunities for precision farming, optimisation and automation during the fermentation and production processes. The meeting concluded with attendees declaring their interest in further exploring the feasibility of localised and on farm biogas production including the opportunity to establish a limited company or association to formally frame those intentions. By organising this event and other similar ones, Orkídea is paving the way for the forthcoming dissemination and exploitation activities of Value4Farm that is committed to integrating renewable energy in farming practices in a way that emphasises local production and consumption of energy in a sustainable and environmentally and economically viable way.

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