BEKON enters Swiss biogas market

Unterföhring, 8 March 2010. An investment of seven million francs to reconstruct a wet fermentation plant into a dry fermentation plant brought BEKON Holding AG from Unterföhring near Munich into the Swiss biogas market. The plant named Allmig produces roughly 3.5 million kilowatt hours of power, sufficient for approximately 1,000 households. It is located in Blickendorf near Zug in the canton of Zug, and took nine months to construct.

The reason for the reconstruction was primarily the efficiency of the BEKON process. With a greater capacity of 20,000 to 25,000 tonnes of organic waste, the new plant now produces five times more power than before. The BEKON process is also much less expensive to management than conventional wet fermentation, since it is less susceptible to contamination and requires less maintenance. As a result, the regional waste disposal company can reduce the fee for accepting organic waste by 20 percent.

“The new plant is a quantum leap in the sensible use of biological waste and the production of biological power,” said Allmig division manager Thomas Meierhans.

“For the development of BEKON, the entrance to the Swiss market is strategically significant,” said BEKON CEO Peter Lutz, “since we can now provide proof of our superior technology onsite in this submarket, too.”

Besides tremendous efficiency in the generation of power and the cost-efficiency of operation management, BEKON technology has other advantages. No odours are released into the open air during the fermentation process, and potential risks of accidents are also substantially reduced. The ecological value of the process consists of the fact that all organic waste is completely processed in a closed ecological circuit. No residual matter is left behind.

In the meantime, BEKON is already working on a new project in Switzerland: In Thun, a biogas plant is emerging with an annual throughput capacity of 20,000 tonnes of biological waste from the region around Thun.

About BEKON Holding AG: The BEKON corporate group with its headquarters in Unterföhring near Munich was formed in 1992 and does business internationally in the construction of biogas plants for the generation of power, and in some cases operates them, too. The main feature of the BEKON biogas plants is the patented dry fermentation process. Additionally, the group provides all services in connection with noise protection and building acoustics. The companies in the group are included under the parent company BEKON Holding AG. The executive board of the holding consists of founder Peter Lutz (chairman), Jürgen Wollny (finance and marketing), Dipl. Ing. Stefan Krämer (technology and plant construction).

BEKON technology for biogas plants with dry fermentation offers inexpensive, tailor-made and attractive alternative solutions for waste utilisation. Another product portfolio (round fermenters) is focused on agricultural businesses. The plants are characterised by comparatively low investment and maintenance costs as well as the production of high-quality gas. This lets the BEKON process make a sustainable contribution to environmental protection by cheaply reducing landfill costs, lowering the very dangerous greenhouse gas methane and generating clean energy. Compost or fuels are produced as ancillary products.