Refuelling at the Farmer’s

Project

Refuelling at the Farmer’s

In order to achieve truly sustainable agriculture, another problem must first be solved: sustainable transport. Agriculture uses a lot of vehicles such as tractors and these machines run on diesel. That is why CCS Energie-advies started designing a tractor that runs on sustainable fuel years ago: biogas instead of diesel. Farmers can refill the tractor on the farm itself, because that is where the biogas is produced as well. But there is always room for improvement! The next step would be a fully-fledged gas station, where customers could refuel with biogas. Not only the farmer would then benefit from the situation, but also local residents could benefit from sustainable transport. CCS is currently working on this under the name ‘Tanken bij de Boer'(Refuelling at the Farmer’s).

This gas station was actually built at ‘De Marke’ testing farm of the Wageningen University and Research Group (WUR). The gasstation was opened at the beginning of this year. A futuristic company has now become a reality! CCS is suppporting in this project by proving how such a gas station can be built and maintained in an efficient and relatively cheap way.

Local tv network ‘Omroep Gelderland’ has made a nice report of the project at De Marke with the ‘Groene Koppen’ programme. This fragment is in Dutch.

Central to this project is our own Bio-UP. By fermenting manure from dairy farmers and then upgrading it from biogas to green gas with the help of the Bio-UP, people can refuel with this gas. The gas station contains a buffer of green gas that is kept on par. By compressing the green gas to 250 bar, it is possible to store it. In this way, the gas station can easily react to fluctuations in demand and supply of green gas. Of course, refuelling green gas should not be more complicated than refuelling petrol or diesel.

Three links

So there are three links in this process towards sustainable transport. A digester to extract biogas from manure, a Bio-UP to upgrade the biogas to green gas, and finally a gas station that supplies this green gas to customers. In this way, consumers can refuel at the farmer’s, in order to contribute to a more sustainable future. With the ‘Refuelling at the Farmer’s’ project, we have already shown that this is feasible on a small scale. But for the future, it is, of course, interesting to apply this on a larger scale. That is why we will share new developments on this page and update you on the status of the first gas station.

 

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