Burning poultry litter creates clean energy for producer.

One of the UK’s largest broiler farmers is burning poultry litter on farm, and already experiencing the benefits. “Where there’s muck, there’s brass,” is a phrase usually more associated with the U.K. county of Yorkshire than Norfolk, and while one of the U.K.’s largest broiler producers has discovered that this adage still holds true, there’s not much muck in evidence at Uphouse Farm in north Norfolk, run by Nigel Joice and his son Patrick. Although producing more than 5.6 million broilers per year, the Joices run a particularly tidy, even “picturesque” operation, around their 17th century farmhouse – it’s a pleasant environment, despite the scale. Given their concern for their surroundings, it’s little surprise that the Joices have decided to reduce their environmental footprint through the generation of heat via on-farm burning of poultry litter using low-emission technology. The Joices can house 800,000 broilers at any time. They have a permit for 830,000 birds but, rather than expand production, more recent years have seen the producers focus on finding and implementing a self-sustaining energy solution. They now burn their poultry litter, recently reclassified by the European Union as a by-product, and use the heat in the broiler sheds. The farm is able to satisfy almost all its heat requirements via litter burning. “One broiler produces enough manure to heat three birds, so the numbers are good,” Nigel says. Uphouse now has an almost limitless supply of clean, dry heat, giving the birds enhanced environmental conditions, as well as offering not only cost savings, but energy cost stability. There is still an occasional need for gas, but this is simply a 5 percent backup, used during downtime, or as a boost in really cold weather. Installing the plant has brought savings in fuel and litter removal, but the energy center investment is also “being paid back by the birds,” in terms of performance. “Indirectly heating the sheds has transformed them,” says Nigel. “We saw an increase in feed rate conversion of 6 points in the first flock, and this has improved with subsequent flocks. “We’re getting more heat now than we did in the early days, and we can run our houses hotter than we did before. The birds like it – they are, after all jungle birds. “But we’re still learning. Running the poultry sheds warmer has been a fairly recent development, we’re making gradual changes. We can also afford to heat the houses for longer, which was not always possible with gas.” The farm produces 8,000 tonnes of manure annually, and 2,600-2,700 are burned for heat, although the plant could be upgraded to burn more and produce electricity, as it was built with extra capacity. And for the Joices, now that the energy plant is up and running, beyond feeding the burner, there is little more to do, as the system is controlled remotely, but it can be monitored locally via an intelligent data panel. Prior to building the energy plant, the Joices had been burning liquefied petroleum gas in the broiler sheds, but this put moisture and gases into the atmosphere that had to be removed. The new system heats the sheds by piping hot water through the houses, and this gives clean and dry heat, so air conditions are improved. There were several factors that drove the Joices to decide on burning chicken manure. Nigel explains: “For a number of years, manure was of no value – local farmers didn’t want it as a fertilizer and although we had discussions with a local power station, this did not work out. “We considered producing gas on farm, but a chance occurrence led us to BHSL and its poultry manure-to-energy technology.” Culled from wattagnet