Grober Green

Electricity from Excrement – Biogas System at Delft Blue Veal Farms

While at the Ontario Electrical League conference (May 2011), EBMag’s editor, Anthony Capkun, signed up for a tour of Delft Blue Veal Farms in Cambridge to learn more about the farm’s anaerobic digester, which takes in over 17 MILLION litres of manure and turns it into electricity.

Delft Blue says biogas operations have “a predictable impact on consistent power generation, a positive impact on carbon and greenhouse gas emission and, most importantly, their by-products can be used as organic land nutrients. Neither wind or solar eliminate methane and provide additional green by-products.

Each new biogas plant creates approximately $1,400,000 worth of jobs in its phase construction alone”.

Originally posted on http://www.ebmag.com Electrical Business (Your Destination for Canada’s Electrical & Communications Community)

On Wednesday June 29, 2011, Delft Blue Veal Farms (division of Grober Inc.) proudly hosted the event, Harvesting Clean Energy on Ontario Farms.

Climate Action Network Canada, the Pembina Institute, the Heinrich Böll Foundation, and The United Church of Canada launched their new report “Harvesting Clean Energy on Ontario Farms” through a series of presentations in Southern Ontario during the week of June 26-30.
The report highlighted the untapped business opportunities for farmers that can be found in the field of renewable energy; the numerous other benefits of renewable energy, such as rural economic development and improved environmental conditions; and finally, the government policies needed to allow farmers to embrace the benefits of renewable energy.

Alongside Canadian and European clean energy experts, Hans-Detlef Feddersen, a leading German farmer, clean energy pioneer and founder of Germany’s first citizen-owned wind park was the featured speaker. The Hon. David Levac, MPP (Brant and Parlimentary Assistant to the Minister of Energy and Infrastructure) served as the Master of Ceremonies.

Delft Blue veal farms offered tours to the guest including the Bio-Gas digester on our farm. The Delft Blue Digester uses manure from the barns to ultimately generate 500 kw of power to the grid – enough power to supply electricity to 500 homes 24 hours/day, 7 days/week.

Guests including OFA, OMAFRA, and individuals from the Green Energy Industry sector enjoyed a beautiful June evening dining on Delft Blue veal.

from L – R (Dave Levac MPP; Deborah Whale (APAO and dairy farmer); Lauryn Draine (Climate Action Network & Pembina Institute); Graham Saul, Executive Director (Climate Action); John Giles (Delft Blue Veal Farms)

October, 2010, Cambridge, Ontario - Delft Blue, North America’s leading veal supplier and producer is a proud believer in the innovation of agriculture. As a demonstration of our commitment to innovative and sustainable practices, Delft Blue has spearheaded the construction of a BioEnergy facility on our Cambridge, Ontario farm.

Organic wastes and greases from the grocery and food service industries collected through the ORMI program (Organic Resource Management Inc.) are combined with our farm waste products in the BioEnergy suite. The energy produced by the biogas generators is then harnessed and used for electricity. Through this project Delft Blue generates enough clean, renewable energy not only to heat our barns and power our farm vehicles but also to power 500 homes 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. In addition, the digestate that is produced by this process becomes a pathogen free land nutrient used to optimize fields and plants.

As part of this project, we organize informative plant and farm tours for chefs and retailers. Through innovative farming and animal care methods, our commitment to sustainability and stewardship, we are proud to lead our industry forward. Our fully integrated system from feed-to farm-to-processing ensures that control and care goes into each and every product.

A balanced nutrition and good eating habits are a crucial part of a healthy lifestyle. Veal is a quality protein delivering essential nutrients for your health and vitality. It is high in vitamin B12,iron, zinc and protein and low in saturated fat.

Delft Blue is proud to introduce the new Ontario Homegrown Veal Menu. This is a certified program that works in close partnership with the Ontario veal farming community to bring homegrown freshness to our customers. This program combined with our own in-house aging process ensures a unique high quality veal selection. As John Meyer, our Food Service Sales Manager and Corporate Chef explains; “this is a truly unique product developed by chefs for chefs. Together we support our Ontario Farmers and partners with exceptionally great tasting and high quality veal. This program demonstrates our ongoing commitment and our obligation to sustainability in cuisine and to the region.”

Experience the colossal taste of our fresh Tower Osso Bucco, one of our signature items. This perfectly tender veal shank can be slow braised in roasted garlic, tomatoes, onions and white wine. It offers the convenience of individual portions, labour savings and stable food cost. Our fresh Cambridge City Loin Chops and premium fresh Milk Fed Pounded Scallopini are just a few of our unique offerings. Put some passion and profit in your menu!

About DELFT BLUE

For over 25 years Delft Blue is a principal national supplier of fresh, frozen, and fully cooked portioned veal and other value added meat products for Canada’s top foodservice and retail customers. Delft Blue is an industry leader and a complete value chain processor providing product control from gate to plate. Delft Blue continues to expand its case ready product lines to include new proteins and items, such as fresh and marinated kebabs, veal rolls, dressed chops and sausages. Delft Blue, along with its two sister companies, Ecolait and ProVeal, offer companies a wide range of co-packing services, an effective alternative to in-house production.

Visit www.delftblue.ca for information on Delft Blue and our new products.

I have only used it for a couple hours because of the weather, but already I’m blown away on how much better this is than using a tractor and wagon.

Everything is controlled from the cab, which cuts down time considerably running back and forth engaging/disengaging pump open/close valves.

On top of that it has a boom loading system so you don’t have to stop and wrestle a hose every load.

The only time a hose is needed is when you are flushing barns and cleaning sump pits.

One of the best features of the Terra Gator is the most prominent … the floatation tires. I was driving 15 mph in a plowed field comfortably and hardly leaving any trace of being there. That is almost impossible to do with any other machine.

It also has injectors which helps again to reduce the odour by incorporating the manure/digestate directly into the ground.

We may not be able to use this feature in some of the more rocky fields, but it a great option for some of the fields in better condition.

The 10 speed transmission gives you 5 low range gears (for spreading) and 5 high range gears (for road travel) and can reach speeds of 40 MPH.

I found that is fairly simple to operate after only hauling a couple loads.

This is definitely a big step in increasing the efficiency of our farm operations, and possibly another source of income if we decide to do some custom manure hauling for neighbouring farmers.

Aron Hamm

[View with PicLens]

Manure management at the Delft Blue Veal’s Corner Farm is critical for 4 reasons:

• Removal of manure from below the calves makes for better air quality and less electricity consumed to run fans to evacuate odours.
• Fresh manure moving to the Anerobic Digester provides betters solids contents to feed the microbes that produce the methane to run our 500 Kwh generator sets.
• Daily scraping of the manure from below the floors will extend the life of the concrete and therefore the longevity of the barns.
• As well daily manure removal reduces our room cleaning costs and therefore the stress on our herdsmen who use to have to manually flush and squeegee to keep the manure flowing.

The system shown here is all Canadian with stainless steel components and due to its simplicity, easily maintained and repaired.

With the new Group Housing flooring system, each section of floor can be lifted by one person allowing them to easily remove anything the might impede the movement of the scrapers.

This is the first time that scrapers have been used in a veal rearing system and is part of the Grober veal farming commitment to “sustainovation” that will provide a healthier living environment for our people and the animal under our care.

[View with PicLens]

Improving the living environment for our animals is critical for improved health of the animal and therefore a safer high quality meat protein for the consumer.

Grober is in the process of converting all its existing barns to the group housing concept as shown in these pictures. In this format which is based on European Union standards, each calf must have 1.8 m2, therefore we will house 8 animals in each group with 10 group pens in each room.

Each room will be equipped with Exacon environmental management hardware and software that will use 6 sensors to monitor interior temperatures, humidity and lighting. Based preset standards the ventilation system will react to climatic changes to stabilize the room conditions to optimize the health of our animals. To further improve the living conditions Deflt Blue has installed daylight LED lighting tied to the Exacon system that will maintain consistent ambient light up to 16 hours per day.

As well the new environmental management system will provide traceability information for the room, where we can monitor the room the condition under six different parameters, literally by the minute and the amounts of water taken in by the calves in each group pen.

Delft Blue and the other Grober veal operations are leading the industry and truly showing that “sustainovation” is the key to healthier animals, the healthiest meat proteins available today and a strong dedication to providing a better environment of all those who live on this planet.

This photo is of the official “turn on/ribbon cutting” of the Delft Blue Veal Farm’s Biogas Generators. Each of the people in this photo contributed to the planning, construction and commissioning of this $2.2 million project.

The driving force behind this project is John Giles (cutting the ribbon in the middle). Without John’s foresight this project would not have been started. John was faced with the challenge of finding a productive use for the over 2.9 million gallons of liquid veal manure the farm creates every year. John spent over three years working on the problem of “how you make methane from manure that has low volatile solids content”? He did it and the end result was the starting of the engines to run the gensets.

To John’s right, is Aron Hamm who is charged with the responsibility of overseeing the construction, managing the complex computer systems and insuring that gas production is maximized! Aron’s background in millwrighting and commissioning of Programmable Logic Control (PLC) robotic manufacturing systems has aided in the efficient construction of the complex. Aron is responsible for tours of this facility and can be contacted at ahamm@grober.com .

To the right of Aron, is Nikko from PlanET the company responsible for the construction of the Biodigester and the pasteurization unit. Nikko was in Canada to oversee the installation of all software to monitor gas production, feedstock inputs and training Aron on the use of the control systems both on site and remotely through Aron’s IPhone.

To the left of John Giles is Lanford, the field commissioning technician from Martin Machinery who supplied the engines and generator sets to produce 500 KWH. Lanford’s challenge was to coordinate the gas usage between the two engines and then synchronize the genset outputs with the specifications for the interconnection to Cambridge North Dumphries Hydro and ultimately the grid. Over the next months, Lanford will be back to the site to optimize the gas consumption of both engines and to monitor the performance the first “lean burn” bi-turbo 12 cylinder MAN engine in North America.

The interconnection to the grid was a major challenge and Trent from Feenstra Electric was the lead in installing and problem solving the challenges of sending power to the grid and insuring that the proper monitoring systems were functional. This was a young team and it demonstrates how with a collaborative effort a project with the magnitude and complexity of the Delft Blue Veal Farm -Biogas system can be designed, constructed and commissioned effectively. In future we will feature and discussions from each of these individuals as to the challenges they faced in turning a low potential output manure into a system large enough to provide power to over 400 homes.

~ Ross Blaine for Grober Green

It was wet and it was rainy but the Delft Blue Biogas plant received it’s first load of waste produce (OARS) from grocery stores. The Biodigester has been stabilized with a diet of dewatered veal manure (to increase the volatile solids) and wet dairy manure from a nearby dairy farm. The two types of manure provide the microbes needed in the digester to convert the nutrients into methane gas. By stabilizing the digester for a period time we make the microbe colony consistent and ready to increase their digestion and methane output by feeding them a richer diet. This process will slowly wean the colony of its need for nutrients from dairy manure and switch them to a diet of veal and OARS waste.

Once we have increased the solids from the OARS to point where methane output is maximized and predictable, we will then start adding the Fats, Oils and Greases (FOG) from restaurant grease traps. This is the final feeding escalation and we suspect that this will result in our increased methane production that will feed our 499 kilowatts per hour generators 24 hours per day.

Delft Blue staff has now had numerous interest groups tour our total facility including the barns and in all cases everyone was impressed with our animal husbandry standards and the sheer magnitude of the biogas suite.

The town of Elmira Ontario is trying to determine if they will allow a large commercial biogas plant to be built and on Saturday October 2, 2010 some of the residents who were expressing concern for the toured our facility. After seeing the Delft Blue operation stated: “Thank you and rest of your group for organizing the bus tour. It must of been very disappointing that only a small number that attended. I learnt allot and many of my acquired fears have been put to the side. Although I would prefer the location be different ( NOT IN MY BACKYARD FEAR) my issues have been alleviated.”

~ Ross Blaine

In rural Hamilton a veal farm puts out $2 million to convert waste to methane and produce electricity

BY ERIC McGUINNESS – PHOTOS BY KAZ NOVAK, THE HAMILTON SPECTATOR

FLAMBOROUGH ✦ Manure from 3,000 veal calves on a Valens-area farm will start producing enough power to supply 500 homes next month.

Industry officials say Delft Blue Veal will be one of only a half dozen Ontario farms — and the first in this area — with an on-site biogas plant turning manure into electricity for sale to the provincial grid.

Farm manager Piet Zeeman likes the idea of raising calves for food, “while you can make hydro with what comes out of the back end.”

Delft Blue, a division of the Grober Group of Cambridge, is building a huge, circular digester tank that will create methane gas to run an engine generating almost 500 kilowatt hours of electricity.

The system will also heat the digester and replace propane now used to heat barns and liquid animal feed.

With a total of 3,000 animals, there is a lot of potential in the waste for methane and nutrient development.

The addition of fat, oil, grease and other liquid food waste from off-farm sources will provide a high-octane boost, maximizing output of green energy while solving a disposal problem.

Nicole Foss, executive co-ordinator of the Agri-Energy Producers’ Association of Ontario, says the biogas process cuts greenhouse gas emissions, removes manure odour, kills most pathogens and prevents Walkerton-like contamination of drinking water. Plant nutrients in the manure — phosphorus, nitrogen and potassium — are preserved in the leftover liquid, or digestate, used as an organic fertilizer.

John Giles, Delft Blue bioenergy project manager, who says he first explored anaerobic digestion in Germany a decade ago, is excited about the prospect of producing power by mid-March.

“You’re not losing your nutrients, but you’re picking up all this carbon in the form of methane.”

The Grober Group processes veal in a federally inspected Cambridge plant for sale to grocers and the food-service industry. It also produces milk-based animal feed and components such as whey protein used in fitness drinks.

The Flamborough farm now has an aerobic digester, one that uses electricity to pump in air to support bacteria that do nothing but remove odour.

In an airless, anaerobic digester, microbes feeding on the waste release methane in a process similar to that in Hamilton’s Woodward Avenue sewage treatment plant, which burns biogas from its sludge digesters to generate electricity.

Foss, whose organization receives provincial aid to encourage biogas production, says: “Anaerobic digestion allows you to reclaim energy and nutrients the way natural systems do. If we promoted it, we could create a huge number of jobs building and servicing biodigesters. Germany built 4,000 plants in 10 years, employing tens of thousands.”

Considering the German experience, it’s not surprising that Plan-ET Biogas Solutions Inc. of St. Catharines, which is installing the Delft Blue system, uses technology from a German partner.

Application manager Matt Lensink says PlanET built digesters for two Niagara greenhouse flower growers in the past two years. They heat the greenhouses and produce power, but unlike Delft Blue rely entirely on off-farm waste, including grape pomace — skins and seeds left over from making wine — and waste from a Toronto dog food factory.

Project manager John Giles inspects equipment at the Delft Blue Veal Farm.

Noting that Ontario’s new Green Energy Act offers premium prices for on-farm biogas power, Lensink says: “The next step is to make people aware of it. Our hope is that it will go, but I don’t know if it will ever be as big here as in Germany, where (power) rates are almost double.”

Foss says current prices are only high enough if the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs continues to offer construction grants.

Ross Blaine, Delft Blue director of innovation, says OMAFRA offers a 40 per cent subsidy up to a maximum of $400,000 — or about 20 per cent for the Flamborough facility in which close to $2 million has been invested.

In keeping with his innovation role, Blaine hopes to do more than generate power. Among other things, he wants to try what he calls nutri-gation, adding digestate to golf-course irrigation systems in place of chemical fertilizer.

used by permisson form Hamilton Spectator emcguinness@thespec.com  905-526-4650