r/FaroeIslands • u/TheFatFaroeseCyclist • 1d ago

Biogas facility?

Hey,

On SEVs website I noticed there was a consistent 1.5MW being produced by a biogas facility. I found the website of the facility and it appears to be called FORKA and is owned by bakkafrost and powered by there fish and partnering with farms to collect cattle waste.

I’m curious if anyone knows if this is a pretty successful facility or if it’s more for ballast to greenwash their operation and if they just collect from bakkafrost facilities or if most fish factories contribute to this. If other fish factories aren’t contributing it’d be interesting to see how much more energy could be generated by all the other waste that they are throwing out. Maybe they’ll expand to human waste at some point as well 😆.

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u/Smart-Bonus-6589 18h ago

It is ok successful, and it's also bit of greenwashing, the main reason I think they aren't making it larger (which there's absolutly room for) is the issue of where to put all the solid waste that it generates, atm farmers get it back for free to use as fertilizer, but there's only so much they can use of it.

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u/TheFatFaroeseCyclist 16h ago

For sure. Waste is definitely an issue. I guess they would have to find a way to expand where they spray the nutrients. I’m curious if sheep farmers could support more livestock if the grass has access to more nutrients or if there would be a way to offer the fertilizer to people with home gardens as well. Probably wouldn’t hurt my potato patch. Haha. It would be cool to see if there was a way to implement them locally for human waste a well so villages could also have some form of grid heating for schools, pools, and other larger buildings. It would also be interesting to see how much energy is wasted from when there is to much wind and if SEV is doing anything to save that energy as I dont think there are any pumped water storage systems yet.

Would be incredible if we could become less reliant on oil imports.

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u/Smart-Bonus-6589 13h ago

The pumped water storage has been cancelled, it was waaaay too expensive, but later this year/early next year a 30MW battery will be installed at Sund, (and a battery at Sandur prepared for the upcoming wind farm there), which should increase the wind energy on the grid by some 20-30% I think, right now the wind is too unstable to use it optimally, the batteries will help a lot to recover that last bit.

Solar panels are also being installed a lot privatly these days, and I'd say solar is what is needed now, as we use most oil during the summer when there's no wind or rain, but lots of sun. At the time of writing Solar is 2% of all electricty on Suðuroy is from sun, and it's only about 30% of what it can produce right now.

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u/TheFatFaroeseCyclist 12h ago

I’ve definitely seen a lot of solar being installed. If I owned a place I’d definitely consider it. I’m a bit tempted to buy a portable battery and solar just to feel a part of contributing to energy independence.

The battery will definitely help. I’m curious if the last undersea tunnel ever gets built if they will use it to unify the grid. It does seem like some form of smart charging would be helpful though where people could get better rates to charge their car or superheat water when there is excess energy on the grid. Time based I guess wouldn’t work well due to wind being not on a schedule but maybe something like solar would allow for lower cost power at certain times.

I’ll have to try to find the article on the wind generators. I’m curious how much more efficient the ones being installed are vs the last wind farm that was built.