The McLenaghans’ renewable energy journey began in the mid-2000s when John installed one of the first on-farm 250kW wind turbines in Northern Ireland.

“We brought it in directly from Denmark in 2005, at a time where there were no support mechanisms around renewables. It had to be self-funded,” John says.

It was at this point that John also began to consider installing an anaerobic digestion (AD) plant for the production of electricity.

“I did a Nuffield Scholarship back in 2006, looking at alternative manure use,” he says. “I was primarily looking at AD plants and travelling around Europe, speaking to farmers. I was hearing what was good and what was bad.

“We originally planned to build the biogas plant at around 150kW size alongside the dairy herd, taking the manure from the cows along with some surplus crops.

“We got planning permission for the plant around 2007-08. It was a very new technology to the planning office.

“Then we hit the banking crisis. We wanted the project to be self-funded and we didn’t want to go down the route of institutional money coming in. At that time we weren’t in a position to make those numbers work so we had to sit on it for a few years.

“It wasn’t until we got to around 2012-13 when we were coming out of the banking crisis we felt a bit more confident.”

At the time, John also ran a dairy enterprise, and with poor milk prices prevailing, he decided to double down on his investment in renewable energy.

“We were sitting on a project where we now had funding from our bank to build, while we were continuing to put grass grown on the farm into a dairy herd that was losing money on every litre of milk going out the gate,” he says.

“I struggled with that as a business model. We had the option to take the plant from 150kW to 250kW, so that’s what we did. When we looked at the numbers, we saw what we could do by spending 20pc more on the project, but we wouldn’t have sufficient ground to supply feedstock to both the AD and dairy herd.

“We weren’t making any money on milk and no one seemed to care. So we made the decision to stop milking and to make the AD plant slightly bigger and take it up to 250kW.”

The AD plant took one year to build and became operational in September 2016.

“We then made the decision to increase the size of the plant further before the Renewables Obligation Certificates (ROCs) closed in 2017. We added a second 80kW engine, taking us to a 330kW gross output,” John says.

ROCs are issued to operators of accredited renewable generating stations for the eligible renewable electricity they generate. Operators can trade ROCs with other parties or sell them directly to a supplier. The system was introduced to Northern Ireland in 2005.

“In 2010 there was recognition that we needed to make a massive leap forward in terms of renewables. There were a handful of similar-sized turbines that came in around the same time,” John says.

“It started with a handful and then the government started to see the Kyoto Protocol and the Paris Agreement coming into play.

“The UK government recognised that they had to speed things up a lot so they decided that they would stick with the ROCs system and that they would band it.

“Where this mid-size generation was worth one ROC previously, 250kW or below was now banded at four ROCs. That dramatically increased the earning potential of a renewable project and that’s what really kick-started renewable production in the North.

“That’s where all the turbines, ADs, and solar projects you see around the countryside came from. It worked very well. We are in a position now where we’re (Northern Ireland) close to 50pc self-sufficient in energy, through local renewable sources.

“It’s just a pity that the support mechanism has stopped. Now we’re the only region in Europe that doesn’t have some sort of support mechanism around renewables.

“In mainland UK there still is support. We think it’s time to start again. We’ve got to a position of 50pc, there’s no reason why we can’t take that further, and further decarbonise the electrical generation system.”

John describes the transition to producing renewable energy as requiring “a whole different set of skills, you have to learn quickly”. The Italian company which produced the AD for the McLenaghan farm is BTS Biogas.

“We sat down with BTS and co-designed what we wanted the plant to look like, engineering around difficult feedstocks like chicken manure,” John says.

“We also use slurry from the cows, and crops — mainly grass silage and whole crop, mostly grown on the farm. We have a number of neighbouring farmers who grow some for us as well.

“We’re not trying to outbid anybody else in this marketplace. I think there’s an awful lot of under capacity in terms of what we can grow on this island. I can see it more because before we were growing what we needed, while now we’re looking to grow what we can.

“I can see how we’re producing more through better efficiencies. I do hear of farmers being outbid; that may happen, but personally it’s not something I’m interested in. We have a good relationship with neighbouring farmers. If they have surplus, we’ll buy it and pay them a fair price for it.

“I don’t think the AD industry wants to get into a bidding war with anybody. I don’t think it needs to and I don’t see it happening that much. I hear the odd anecdotal story… but if it’s at an auction, it didn’t get there on its own.

“I believe that land is multi-functional. I don’t believe that I can tell somebody how they should farm their land. I have to farm within the right codes of practice and in an environmentally sensitive way.

“Land is not just for food production. I drive through some of the best land in Ireland and I see a wonderful horse track in the middle of it. That’s fine, that’s the use for that land.”

John says the attitude towards on-farm energy production has evolved over the past two decades in Northern Ireland.

“When we were putting up the wind turbines initially, none of the energy companies were interested,” he says. “All of a sudden now they are interested.

“To me, one of the big successes is that farmers and individual enterprises saw an opportunity and developed it themselves.

“I think the South has very clearly identified the demand for the biomethane product. The gas companies want it so there’s definitely a demand for it. The farming industry has demonstrated that it is up for it.

“You’ve the potential supply, the market for the product; the bit that I as an outside observer see is that to bring those two parties together, you have got to start talking the numbers.

“You can talk as much as you want about the environmental benefits and the various other aspects… but anywhere in the world where this has happened, there has been a stimulus package to make it happen.

“I don’t see how it can happen on the island without a stimulus package. The longer you wait the more expensive it’s getting.”

How John McLenaghan further reduces the farm’s carbon footprint – and the next steps he plans to take

The McLenaghans run a fleet of electric vehicles on the farm, including an electric quad, van and two electric cars.

John’s appetite for renewable energy and its alternative uses shows no sign of easing.

“It makes an awful lot of sense for us to use what we produce,” he says. “We would love to decarbonise further. We’re using diesel to grow and harvest a crop of grass which we then use to produce renewable energy.”

John is considering a switch from diesel to biomethane tractors to reduce his carbon footprint further.

​“The raw biogas is 50-odd percent methane, 40-odd percent carbon dioxide and few other trace elements. We would like to introduce a biomethane stream alongside electricity production.

“We’ve looked at expanding the electric fleet for heavier machinery, but haven’t found options yet.

“That CO2 produced is equivalent to what the crop had absorbed from the atmosphere, so the technology is regarded as carbon neutral.

“We’d like to introduce going forward a way of capturing the CO2 and providing it to a customer such as the food industry, carbonating cider for example.

“One of the things I really like about the AD technology is the up and downstream options we have from it.

“We also utilise the heat. The excess heat from the engines is used in my house and my parents’ house next door. We have no oil heating requirements, or electricity. The district heating loop cost us about £10,000.

“The digestate we’re utilising to grow the next crop of grass again, so we’re pretty much fertiliser-free.

“We’re looking at 20t of fresh weight per acre across a four-cut silage system. We’re producing a digestate that’s high in nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium.”

The farm grows approximately 350ac of forage per year, made up of 250ac of grass and 100ac of wholecrop.