Renewable energy
Areas of Expertise:
Grassland and Plant Science,
Environmental Protection
Service:
Research & Development
A wide-ranging research programme into sources of renewable energy from agriculture and forestry is built around AFBI's facilities. This includes: Renewable energy crops, Biomass crops, Bioremediation, Anaerobic digestion projects & analysis of Greenhouse gas emissions.
Our facilities
- Short Rotation Coppice (SRC) willow production with bioremediation of dirty water.
- Improving and evaluating the agronomy of Miscanthus to achieve higher DM yields.
- Storage and utilisation of biomass crops.
- The carbon footprint of agricultural enterprises.
- Combustion and emission characteristics of varying biomass sources.
- The effect of the incorporation of renewable energy schemes on the carbon footprint of the AFBI Hillsborough site.
- Demonstration of energy saving design and technology.
- SRC crop management and harvesting regimes.
- Investigation into further exploitation of the multifunctionality of woody energy crops eg, riparian strips, disease barriers, carbon sinks.
- Demonstration of other renewable energy technologies.
- Anaerobic digestion of animal manure.