Sludge Watch ==> Sheboygan Wisc- City Sewage Now Generating Electricity

[maureen.reilly at sympatico.ca]

http://www.sheboygan-press.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060516/SHE0101/605160495/1062


Posted May 16, 2006

City sewage now generating electricity

Microturbines added to Sheboygan wastewater plant

By Eric Litke
Sheboygan Press staff


Sheboyganites can help save the environment — and the city's bottom line — 
with each trip to the john thanks to new waste disposal technology unveiled 
Monday that converts poop to power and saves the city about $70,000 a year.


The city's Wastewater Treatment Plant now has 10 microturbines that use 
methane gas created by solid waste to generate electricity and heat, cutting 
the plant's electric and natural gas bills by 40 percent and earning 
renewable energy and emissions credits, according to Dale Doerr, the city's 
wastewater superintendent.


The microturbines spin at 96,000 rpm on a cushion of air and are 
"essentially a jet engine," said Jan Scott of Unison Solutions, which 
installed the system. The equipment has been installed in stages since the 
first of the year and has been running for about a month at the plant, 3333 
Lakeshore Drive.


"You're really seeing state-of-the-art, new-generation technology," Scott 
said Monday as the microturbines whined in the background.


The installment is the second-largest of its kind in the United States, said 
Mark Meyer, commissioner with the Wisconsin Public Service Commission.


The microturbines can put out enough power to run 150 homes, according to 
Alliant Energy, which paid for most of the project. The wastewater plant now 
generates about 1 percent of the 80 megawatts of renewable energy Alliant 
generates in Wisconsin.


"Congratulations to Sheboygan for doing what a lot of people around the 
country are talking about doing," Alliant spokesman David Halbach told 
dignitaries assembled Monday for a ribbon-cutting ceremony. Mayor Juan Perez 
and state Sen. Joe Leibham, R-Sheboygan, were among the attendees.


Alliant, which runs several biogas projects elsewhere in the state, paid $1 
million of the $1.2 million price tag for the microturbines. The state 
Energy Independence Act, passed about six weeks ago, requires utilities to 
spend 1.2 percent of their annual operating revenues on renewable energy 
programs.


The Sheboygan microturbines are the first renewable energy source installed 
in the state since the passage of the energy act, and if successful could 
pave the way for other large wastewater facilities to implement similar 
systems, Meyer said.


The city previously burnt off, or wasted, about 25 percent of the methane 
gas produced by the plant, according to Ron Hicks, plant maintenance 
supervisor.


The energy act calls for 10 percent of the electricity consumed in Wisconsin 
to be generated by renewable resources by 2015. About 4 percent of the 
state's power is from renewable resources now.


"We always talked about this in the abstract — well, this is real," Meyer 
said. "For every dollar of coal we don't have to burn as a result of this 
facility, that's a dollar that can stay in Wisconsin."


About $20,000 of the money the city will save is in the form of state 
credits paid to the city for reducing emissions by using less fossil fuel 
power, Doerr said. The state spends $6 billion importing fossil fuels each 
year, Meyer said.


"Having a diverse portfolio of energy supply is going to be a good thing at 
the end of the day for the consumer," Meyer said.


The microturbine installations are part of extensive city wastewater 
improvements done since 2003 that will save the city more than $300,000 
annually, Doerr said.


Under the development agreement, Alliant will own and maintain the 
microturbines for six years and then sell them to the city for $100,000, 
Doerr said.

Reach Eric Litke at 453-5119 and elitke at sheboygan-press.com