Biogas plant from Omni Heat and Power

sjt01

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
North Norfolk
Has anyone had experience with an AD plant from Omni Heat and Power? There is a farmer I am trying to help who has had one, which has CHP and control system issues and has not been running for some while. Omni will not answer the phone to him, and have phoenixed into a new company so no opportunity for legal redress.
He has neither an operating manual nor any documentation whatsoever, almost nothing is labelled in the control panel and the PLC and logic controllers are password protected.
I would be keen on sharing experiences and information for mutual benefit. PM me if you would like to keep it off the Forum.
 

pappuller

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
M6 Hard shoulder
Has anyone had experience with an AD plant from Omni Heat and Power? There is a farmer I am trying to help who has had one, which has CHP and control system issues and has not been running for some while. Omni will not answer the phone to him, and have phoenixed into a new company so no opportunity for legal redress.
He has neither an operating manual nor any documentation whatsoever, almost nothing is labelled in the control panel and the PLC and logic controllers are password protected.
I would be keen on sharing experiences and information for mutual benefit. PM me if you would like to keep it off the Forum.
Omni are/were local to us and we discussed a slurry only ad plant with them a few years ago, didn't do any business and glad we didn't, they installed one or two locally and I don't think any have been particularly successful.
They don't have a particularly good reputation unfortunately.
 

mugger24

Member
Has anyone had experience with an AD plant from Omni Heat and Power? There is a farmer I am trying to help who has had one, which has CHP and control system issues and has not been running for some while. Omni will not answer the phone to him, and have phoenixed into a new company so no opportunity for legal redress.
He has neither an operating manual nor any documentation whatsoever, almost nothing is labelled in the control panel and the PLC and logic controllers are password protected.
I would be keen on sharing experiences and information for mutual benefit. PM me if you would like to keep it off the Forum.
Omni are still going, have you tried calling them and if so who did you speak to?
 

mugger24

Member
The program is not the issue, it is reverse engineering other's code written illogically. It would be easiest to start again, but need to work out the capacity of the hardware.

It has been commissioned, but not run for a while.
I believe the farmer was sent the plc programme have you not bothered to get back in touch if your having problems accessing
 

mawleymoos

Member
Location
Shropshire
Sorry i have just read this post! yes i do have an omni built digester and it is absolutely brilliant when it is running! which is probably 95-99% of the time! the problem is that it is a bit temperamental and its needs quite a bit of attention, to achieve this! i have just spoke to omni this morning about a problem, and although they don't always answer and jump straight away! we have always resolved issues quite quick! so not sure why your chap can't get codes or help from them?
 

mugger24

Member
Sadly cannot help at all , but I can sympathise, it seems the energy industry is full of rogues from top to bottom, and all covering their backsides at every turn, grab your money and absolutely no concept of duty to the customer
It is so easy to tar everyone with the same brush whilst sat with a keyboard
 

sjt01

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
North Norfolk
Sorry i have just read this post! yes i do have an omni built digester and it is absolutely brilliant when it is running! which is probably 95-99% of the time! the problem is that it is a bit temperamental and its needs quite a bit of attention, to achieve this! i have just spoke to omni this morning about a problem, and although they don't always answer and jump straight away! we have always resolved issues quite quick! so not sure why your chap can't get codes or help from them?
Thanks for the reply. I do not know the back history of the site, but am trying to help out someone with a major investment that is not working. Perhaps he fell out with Omni over something, but I am not sure.
I think if we can sort the CHP then it should work, but has been designed with a very high parasitic load of "jet mixing" taking almost 50% of the power delivered.
Which CHP do you have? Is it a Cummins (China) 6BT 50kW output with a Deep Sea DSE8610 controller?
 

mawleymoos

Member
Location
Shropshire
yes we have the chinese cummins engine (80kw) and deep sea controller! the origional engine done 24-24k hours and we decided to buy a complete spare engine as i hate down time! when the time came omni just swapped them over and we sent the engine away for a complete overhaul! the problem with a spare is that we kept nicking parts off it (turbo,sensors,manifold, altinator etc etc) and then had to gather everything up to make it useable!!! i am concerned about parasitic load as we generally run between 55-70kwhs (just cow slurry) but we only run the mixing pump (22kw) for 5 mins in 30! and that is only 8 hrs a day due to sulphur being a little high! there is another 15 kw pump at the rear which should be mixing as well, every 1/2 hr or so! but again, it is switched off at the moment!
 

sjt01

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
North Norfolk
yes we have the chinese cummins engine (80kw) and deep sea controller! the origional engine done 24-24k hours and we decided to buy a complete spare engine as i hate down time! when the time came omni just swapped them over and we sent the engine away for a complete overhaul! the problem with a spare is that we kept nicking parts off it (turbo,sensors,manifold, altinator etc etc) and then had to gather everything up to make it useable!!! i am concerned about parasitic load as we generally run between 55-70kwhs (just cow slurry) but we only run the mixing pump (22kw) for 5 mins in 30! and that is only 8 hrs a day due to sulphur being a little high! there is another 15 kw pump at the rear which should be mixing as well, every 1/2 hr or so! but again, it is switched off at the moment!
The farm I am looking at has pipes in for gas mixing, which will use far less power.

image110.jpeg
image8.jpeg

He did a manual system with an old milking vacuum pump, but it would not be too difficult to put in a proper ATEX gas compressor (e.g. Utile Engineering LGB32) and valving to automate it. Power demand of about 1.5 kW.
1652513616131.png
 

mugger24

Member
I spoke to Jason who was quite helpful and sent me the program. It is rather spaghetti code though.
Have you tried to speak with Jason again since he sent it? It's not very good that you have come on here spouting untruths especially when you have since admitted to yourself being in contact with the company! There is always 2 sides to a story
 

Exfarmer

Member
Location
Bury St Edmunds
Have you tried to speak with Jason again since he sent it? It's not very good that you have come on here spouting untruths especially when you have since admitted to yourself being in contact with the company! There is always 2 sides to a story
mugger as a fairly rarely seen person on these boards, I would;d point out that @sjt01 is a very highly respected member here and I would rather take his version of the story. He is trying to help out another customer of this particular firm who has issues
 

sjt01

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
North Norfolk
Have you tried to speak with Jason again since he sent it? It's not very good that you have come on here spouting untruths especially when you have since admitted to yourself being in contact with the company! There is always 2 sides to a story
I am merely telling what I found out, and hope that others might be able to provide more and better information. My next move is to try to patch up relations between the farmer and Omni, as this might be the best way forwards. I still have a few issues with the plant design, particularly the parasitic load which is totally out of proportion, but I doubt that there is a single digester which worked without substantial modifications post-commissioning.
 

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