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Hungary’s sixth agricultural biogas plant was built on our site, which utilizes the by-products of oyster mushroom cultivation.
During the cultivation of oyster mushrooms, approximately three thousand tonnes of spent mushroom substrate are produced annually, of which treatment our company sought an economical and at the same time environmentally friendly solution. After a thorough consideration of the options, we decided to use biogas technology. However, the spent mushroom substrate has never been used in this way in the world, so with the support of the Economic Competitiveness Operative Program, research and development work was also connected to the project preparation. After the positive research results, the investment started.
After the preparation of the project and the acquisition of permits, the construction of the biogas plant at our company’s premises began in June 2007. By September 2007, the investment reached the point where filling of the fermenter could begin, and in December the gas engine started. October 2008 is the next milestone: the full capacity was reached.
The plant produces 1.2 million cubic meters of biogas per year, which requires annually 7-9,000 tonnes of organic matter from the agriculture . A good part of this comes from oyster mushroom cultivation, which is supplemented with diluted pig manure and silage corn. The generated biogas is transformed into electricity and thermal energy by the gas engine with 330 kW electric and 400 kW thermal power. Part of the thermal energy is needed to provide the heat for biological processes in the fermenter, while the other part, approximately 2.68 million kWh per year, will be used to heat the mushroom growing tents as a later second step of the development. The plant can feed 2.4 million kWh of electricity into the national electricity grid every year.
The central unit of the biogas plant is the fermenter with a volume of two thousand cubic meters, where the biological processes yielding the biogas take place. The gas engine was placed in the technological machine room. The plant also includes a covered lagoon capable of storing 6,200 m3 of the final product, as well as raw material storage and reception facilities.
Due to the carefully designed size of the plant, it affects its immediate environment as little as possible. 100% of the organic materials required for biogas production are agricultural waste or by-products. The raw material is collected locally, and the pig manure is transported to the plant from nearby farms, so there is no significant freight traffic.
Almost 70% of the 340 million HUF investment was made by our company on its own (part of it was a loan), while another HUF 110 million was provided by support from the Environmental Protection and Infrastructure Operational Program fo Hungary.
Pilze-Nagy Ltd. carried out a pioneering development with the launch of a biogas plant based on the utilization of the spent mushroom substrate, which fully meets the original goal: the most economical and environmentally friendly disposal of mushroom cultivation by-products. While the use of thermal energy generated during electricity production greatly improves the economics of mushroom cultivation, the environmentally friendly technology used is a guarantee of sustainable development.
