Prince Charles takes on energy giants with biogas plant It is hoped the plant will produce more than 106 million cubic feet of methane each year - enough to provide gas to the Prince Charles' model village of Poundbury on the outskirts of Dorchester, Dorset, and homes in the surrounding area. The biogas plant has now been connected up to the National Grid to allow gas to be sold on the open market. During the winter, when gas use is highest, it could heat and be used for cooking in 4,000 homes while in the summer this could increase to 56,000 homes. Andrew Phillips, rural director of finance at the Duchy of Cornwall, said: "The Prince has been very interested in this project from the word go and the Duchy has provided the funding for it. "As time has gone on, the Princes" interests and the world's concerns have moved on to encompass sustainable energy. The plant has spun from that and a desire to provide energy for the Poundbury development. The biogas plant, which has been sited on Duchy of Cornwall owned farmland just outside Poundbury in an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, is expected to use around 41,000 tonnes of maize, grass silage and food waste each year. Among those sending waste to the plant are Dorset Cereals and the House of Dorchester chocolate factories. The waste is fed through a series of containers as it is digested by bacteria and the gas extracted, purified and then sent into the National Grid. Around a fifth of the gas will also be used to generate electricity for around 500 homes and for the plant itself, which is being run by a consortium called JV Energen. There are around 88 biogas plants currently in the UK, but most are small scale and are used to generate electricity or provide heating for factories or farm estates. It is estimated that around 100 million tonnes of material is produced in the UK each year that could be used to generate biogas, but plants are extremely expensive to set up. Mr Phillips refused to say how much it had cost to build the Prince's biogas plant in Dorset, but a similar sized plant in Scotland cost more than £25 million. By selling the gas into the National Grid, however, it will benefit from renewable heat subsidies set by the government. Mr Phillips said: "Our plant has been commercially built and we think it provides value for money. Clearly it is an area of outstanding natural beauty so we have been working closely with the planners to make it fit in, but the local community have been very supportive. It doesn't produce any noticeable smell and we have tried to make the impact as little as possible. What is really attractive about this is that we are putting gas straight into people's boilers, which are far more efficient than using the gas to generate electricity. People can be using the gas without even knowing there is renewable gas flowing through their pipes. The muck, called digestate, which we are left with at the end is a natural fertiliser, so we are putting that back onto the chalky soils in the group of farms we are working with. Researchers at the University of Aberdeen are among a number who are now attempting to find ways of reducing the cost of building biogas plants that use anaerobic digestion. The Prince, however, hopes that if his own plant is successful it will act as a prototype that can be copied elsewhere in the country. A spokesman for the Prince of Wales said: "The Prince of Wales has long advocated the importance of protecting the planet's finite resources and finding sustainable solutions to our energy needs. As a result, His Royal Highness has been consulted at every stage of this pioneering project as well as visiting the site throughout the development. Howard Mason, 49, a farmer in Dorset who is helping to supply maize for use in the plant, said the crop would be grown in fields that were being "rested." He said: "We used to grow oil seed rape as part of the crop rotation and sold it to Germany where it was used to make biofuels, but this allows us to produce a energy that can be used locally. The lovely thing about gas is that it is storable and can be used when you want it.