Collaborating farms in and around Koekange, Echten and Ruinerwold apply for a loan of 1.4 million euros from the municipality of De Wolden. The province of Drenthe and gas network operator Rendo also received an application. The money is needed for the production of green gas.
The ambitions of the Green Gas Cooperative De Wolden are in danger of disappearing, the cooperative writes in a letter to the municipality. The cooperative consists of 34 livestock farms that want to produce green gas on their own property with a manure digester.
By joining forces of large and small farming companies, gas production on smaller livestock farms can also be profitable. “For this you need larger companies, with more than a hundred cows,” says Klaas Tijmens, initiator of the project. It is precisely these companies that now have to be kept on board, so money is needed in the short term to speed up the project and retain livestock farmers.
“Companies are now approaching large livestock farms to ask if they want to install a biogas plant. They then want to buy the liquid gas.” So competition. “If large farmers drop out from us, the entire project will not be feasible. Hence the urgent letter.”
The cooperative is requesting a loan to install manure gas digesters on farmers’ yards, the construction of 32 kilometers of pipeline and an upgrading station. Such an installation is necessary to make the biogas suitable for the existing natural gas pipelines.
A total of 14 million euros is needed for the entire project, of which the bank wants to guarantee 60 percent. For the remaining amount, the province, municipality and Rendo are contacted.
“Actually, the urgent letter should have come from the province, municipality and Rendo,” says Tijmens. “The municipality has a task with the heat transition, Rendo with green gas and the province with the approach to rural areas (nitrogen, water, etc.). We contribute to this.”