Refood anaerobic digestion plant in Widnes diverts commercial business food waste from landfill into green energy.

Fulton supply a packaged hot water boiler system consisting of 12 FHE-250 modular hot water boilers for the site. 

Shane Murray, group project manager for Saria (Refood’s parent company):

“Fulton presented a solution to provide multiple small hot water boilers which, additionally, gave us spare capacity during scheduled maintenance or if one of the boilers malfunctioned. The Fulton design was also considerably better than anything we saw from their competitors.

We were so impressed with the design, installation and the fact that heat and hot water from Fulton’s boilers are used for so many functions, that we are also discussing maintenance packages with the company”.

Anaerobic digester produces biogas

Commercial food waste delivered to the Refood site is processed through an anaerobic digester, a natural method that – working in a similar way to a compost heap but on an industrial scale and in the absence of oxygen – biologically breaks down food material to produce biogas.

Once the biogas is upgraded to the standard required, it is then injected back into the national grid.

Fulton boiler installation at Refood

Fulton manufacture fully prefabricated, skid-mounted systems and plant rooms offering high levels of efficiency and reliability.

Fulton boiler system has 2 primary functions:

• provide hot water for the cleaning of the site
• hot water for washing and sterilisation of the food waste bins

The boiler system also provides heat to the pasteurisers prior to the anaerobic digesters.

To comply with ABP regulations, legislation dictates that pasteurised food waste has to be maintained at 70 degrees centigrade for one hour. Heat from the boiler system is also used for the under floor heating system in the offices and other ancillary processes on site.

FHE-250 hot water boiler

Fulton FHE-250 hot water boilers feature:

• fully-condensing, stainless steel heat exchanger
• modular approach to design also means that additional boilers can be combined to suit any application and hot water requirement

With the complexity of control being a criticism of many hot water boilers available on the market today, the new FHE-250 uses a single control panel, which is capable of controlling a single unit or a modular installation.