A commercial bakery in the UK using the Flexibuster™ unit, our small AD unit, to create energy from its waste bakery products can pay for the unit in under 5 years. This is based on certain assumptions:
The most important factor is the type of waste and quantity that will be put into the Flexibuster™ unit. In our case, a half a metric tonne of food waste consisting of sandwiches and breads is ‘fed’ to the Flexibuster™ five days a week. This waste consists of old bread and old sandwiches with tomatoes, lettuce, mayonnaise, mustard as additional items, some cakes and sweet bakery items.
The bakery currently has a need for all of the electricity and heat that the Flexibuster™ can produce, and is currently buying this electricity at 0.14p/kWh, and 0.065p/kWh gas. With the unit producing more than 40,000 kWh of electricity and more than 70,000 kWh of heat, the bakery can save over £10K in current expenditures on energy.
The same commercial bakery has a waste disposal cost of £300/metric tonne. The waste being processed by the Flexibuster™ is reduced down to about 1/3 of its initial tonnage, creating a cost savings of just under £14K per year in disposal charges.
With local renewable energy support incentives available to the bakery totalling over £7K, the Flexibuster™ unit capital cost, installation and maintenance costs can be paid off in under 5 years.
In countries where the capital costs or even total project costs receive tax credits, the payback can be even shorter.
