Aberdeenshire Council has been urged to cash-in on the potential of a north-east landfill site – instead of letting an energy firm reap the benefits.
The local authority is looking for a company to assess and utilise energy from the Crow’s Nest landfill site near Banchory.
The council has researched generating methane from landfill gas at the spot – which would also help it to meet its CO2 reduction targets through a gas to energy project.
But local authority officials have highlighted risks in designing, building, financing and operating such a project, which may also require getting permissions to instal pipes across private land.
They have also expressed concerns about the operation and maintenance costs across the site’s lifespan, which the use of a third party would alleviate.
But Mid Formartine councillor Paul Johnston said the local authority had an opportunity to be “enterprising” and make the most of Crow’s Nest’s potential.
He questioned whether the council should “go to a third party or whether we should do this and get a better outcome ourselves”.
He added: “If we’re an enterprising council we should be able to use the site to produce biogas.”
But the council’s scientific officer, Bruno Agochukwu, said: “One of the main risks is around how you project the amount of gas in the landfill. The projections we got from consultation were based on some uncertain information. We can’t size the plan.”
This has made it hard for Aberdeenshire Council to produce an accurate model of how much potential energy may be at the site, an issue a third party could solve.
Landfill gas can be converted into both electricity and natural gas, however if it escapes into the atmosphere the methane within is a powerful greenhouse gas.
Stephen Archer, the council’s director of infrastructure services, said: “We felt it was important to get this moving. A third party allowed us to get some planning around this process. There is some 10 years of benefits.”