KTG Agrar steps on the gas in the new year
- New 3.2 MW biogas plant is on line
- Construction of another 3.2 MW gas feed-in plant to start shortly
- Sales growth of approx. EUR 7 million in the biogas segment alone
Hamburg, 19 January 2010 – “In 2010 we will again step on the gas to boost both our gross performance and our profits,” says an optimistic Siegfried Hofreiter, CEO KTG Agrar AG [ISIN: DE000A0DN1J4]. The Hamburg-based agricultural company manages more than 29,000 hectares of farmland in east Germany and Lithuania, where it grows organic and conventional agricultural commodities such as grain, maize and rapeseed. The production of biogas is KTG Agrar’s third business segment and will make an important contribution to growth in the current year. The first step has already been taken – right on time for the new year, a new biogas plant with a rated electrical output of 3.2 megawatts (MW) went on line in Flechtingen, Saxony-Anhalt. The biogas is converted into electricity via a micro gas grid in four modern CHP plants and fed into the public grid. The heat is supplied to some 150 households in Flechtingen as well as to the local school, a kindergarten and a private rehabilitation clinic. Therewith, KTG Agrar now operates biogas plants with a total capacity of around eleven megawatts.
Another biogas plant will be completed in Seelow by mid-2010. A 3.2 MW plant to be built east of Berlin has advanced beyond the planning stage and all necessary approvals have been obtained. The new project will be KTG Agrar’s first biomethane plant. The biogas will be upgraded to natural gas quality and then be fed into the regional gas grid. The Seelow plant is also based on the company’s integrated concept, under which only own input materials are used; apart from maize silage, these include agricultural residues such as grass and straw. In addition, KTG Agrar increasingly relies on intercrop as feedstock for its biogas plants. Following the grain harvest in the summer, millet is sown and harvested in November. “Our biogas production activities already generate an EBIT margin of more than 20 percent, although we are far from having leveraged our full synergy potential,” says Siegfried Hofreiter. “In the coming years, we want to increase the percentage of residues and intercrop from 30 to far more than 50 percent.” In addition, efficiency will be increased as a result of breeding and technological progress; for instance, seed producers are working on new energy crops with reduced space requirements. There is also considerable potential in the fermentation process.
As a result of the new plants in Flechtingen and Seelow, sales revenues in the biogas segment alone will increase by roughly EUR 7 million in the current year. Says Siegfried Hofreiter: “These plants have already laid the foundation for a successful year 2010.”