Landfills as Energy Farms An Idea Whose Time Has Come?
Monday, February 28, 2011
By John Trotti
Back in the early 1990s, someone sent me a news item about an intermountain area landfill using a small-farm-type windmill to cover the energy demands of its leachate pumping system. “What a neat idea,” I remarked in my Editor’s Comments at the time, thinking it of potential benefit for any landfill with enough wind to handle the load.
As I’ve made obvious in the past, I’m a real believer in options and the decentralization of our vital infrastructure components—energy systems at the fore—where their disruption can catapult us into fifth-world receivership in short order. Thus, on a regular basis, I’ve used this column to discuss a variety of energy-from-waste opportunities in different waste situations and facilities.
Our coverage of the use of landfill gas for direct heating applications and as fuel for IC engines and turbines is unrivaled, and our support for the growing variety of advanced biomass-to-energy processes goes back more than a decade, highlighted by our sponsorship of a colloquy on the subject in 1999 that was in many respects the seminal moment in the conversion technologies’ thrust into the waste diversion arena. But more was—and is—to come.
In our September/October 2009 issue we presented an article on the installation of a solar energy cover on Republic Waste Services’ Tessman Road Landfill on the outskirts of San Antonio, TX, using Exposed Geomembrane Solar Cap (EGSC) technology generating about 120,000 kW of renewable solar power. Now it’s time for wind again.
In March 2009, after more than four years of planning, Lancaster County Solid Waste Management Authority (LCSWMA) and its principal partner, PPL Renewable Energy (PPLRE), decided to move forward with the installation of two 1.6-MW GE wind turbines at the authority’s Frey Hill Landfill, and today it is a reality.
This is the LCSWMA’s third renewable energy source and its second partnership with PPLRE, where in 2005 the two agreed to install a 3.2-MW LFGTE system at the Frey Farm Landfill. The power generated by the 262-foot-high wind turbines will be purchased by the adjacent Turkey Hill Dairy under an initial 10-year power purchase agreement that will cover roughly 25% of the energy requirements for its ice cream, milk, and tea products.
Financial details for the $9.5 million project are impressive, with a $1.5 million Pennsylvania Economic Development Association Grant and a $2.4 million tax credit (30%), leaving the requirement for $5.6 million in total equity. As part of the transaction, the LCSWMA loaned PPLRE $4.65 million at 6% (10 years), in return for which the LCSWMA receives 12.5% of electric revenues, establishing an average return on investment of 9% for 20 years based on a 27% capacity factor—the actual energy produced in a given period of time in relation to the hypothetical maximum possible—for the turbines.
MSW Management will be presenting a comprehensive report on the project in its July/August 2011 issue, but we were so impressed that we couldn’t help giving you a heads-up here.
Author's Bio: John Trotti is the Group Editor for Forester Media. |
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