Pennsylvania Enters Second Funding Round of Energy Harvest Program
Sep 12 - BioCycle
BIOMASS TECHNOLOGIES
Many new proposals for anaerobic digestion were among those received by the
closing end-of-July date for the 2004 Energy Harvest grants, says Kerry
Campbell, Energy Program Specialist with the Pennsylvania DEP. Another $5
million have been allocated for this second round. DEP will announce the award
winners in late fall.
Several months ago, Secretary McGinty announced grant recipients of the first
$5 million state energy initiative that will leverage another $13 million in
private funds. She made that announcement at Wanner's Pride-N-Joy Farm, a
400-head dairy farm in Lancaster County. The farm received a $327,412 grant,
sponsored by the local Conservation District to help finance the anaerobic
digester designed to generate 967,000 kWh of electricity from manure annually.
The digester should produce 2,650 kWh of electricity each day, nearly four times
what the farm currently uses. The Wanners plan to sell surplus electricity to
their power provider, PPL. Other benefits include producing digested manure
solids, which after composting can be sold to landscaping contractors.
Besides contributing 10 percent of the project's costs, the Wanners plan to
sell the "green tags" (i.e. environmental attributes) to NativeEnergy,
which will provide approximately another 10 percent of the total costs of the
project. (See June 2004 BioCycle, p. 55.) TeamAg Inc., who has assisted the
Wanners with their engineering, nutrient management planning and permitting, is
exploring other funding sources for this project. The Sustainable Energy Fund of
Central Eastern Pennsylvania will provide low- interest loans for the project as
well.
Following is a list of the first year Pennsylvania Energy Harvest award
winners in the biomass utilization area:
Seneca Landfill Inc. (Butler County) - $145,000 - The landfill will utilize a
portion of methane gas that is currently being flared to cogenerate electricity
and hot water for the leachate treatment system.
Carnegie Mellon University (Allegheny County ) - $96,750 - To implement a
living roof project at the "signature building" of the University,
with key benefits to reducing stormwater runoff, reduce heating and cooling
costs, reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Chester County Industrial Development Authority - $150,000 - This project
will address the accumulation of more than 400 dry tons of spent mushroom
compost per day in Chester County. Through Advanced Fluidized Composting, 95
percent to 100 percent of the spent mushroom compost will be converted into
methane and ethanol. This process has the potential to utilize 100 percent of
the spent mushroom compost and provide Chester County with 10 percent of its
domestic energy requirements.
Clinton County Conservation District - $357,000 - This is an anaerobic
digester project submitted by the Clinton County Conservation District on behalf
of Schrack Farms, a 200-year-old family dairy farm, located within the High
Quality Stream, Sugar Valley Fishing Creek Watershed. The project will
incorporate a 160 kW generator, producing 4.8 million kWh of electricity. Waste
heat from the process will be used to support the digester and used to augment
the dairy's hot water boiler. (See June 2004 BioCycle.)
Indiana County Conservation District - $408,577 - This is a proposal on
behalf of Brookside Dairy to develop an anaerobic digester that is expected to
produce approximately 770,000 kWh per year and potentially save the farm $35,000
in electricity costs.
Somerset Conservation District - $373,206 - The District is applying on
behalf of Dovan Farms, a 400-head dairy, to construct an anaerobic digester. The
digester would generate 700,000 kWh per year, using a 100 kW generator. Waste
heat would be used to support the digester operation and for the farm's hot
water boiler. The digested solids and liquids will be land applied on the
900-acre farm, including 400 acres of heavy clay soils on stripmined land.
Pocono Northeast Resource Conservation and Development Council - $400,000 -
The council will manage this project on behalf of three farms whose combined
total of liquid manure is more than 7.4 million gallons annually. The approach
is to install an anaerobic digester at each farm, which would have integral
phosphorous removal technology and remove a total of about 128,000 pounds of
P^sub 2^O^sub 5^ annually from the effluent. It is also calculated that
resultant effluent, when used for irrigation, would provide a savings of $73,000
during drought stressed years. The combined electrical output from this proposal
is 919,000 kWh. The current cost to the farmers for this electricity (prior to
self generation) demand is $117,600.
Acadia Water Technologies LLC - $241,702 - Acadia Water Technologies of
Philadelphia is proposing initially to install a total of 1.1 MW of electric
generating capacity by working with 10 to 15 wastewater treatment plants to run
their methane gas through 55 kW Sterling Engines. Acadia plans to use these
early projects as demonstrations ultimately to develop over 5 MW of capacity
from treatment plants statewide.
Building on last year's programs, the Keystone State's Department of
Environmental Protection puts more emphasis on creating greater economic
development.
Copyright J.G. Press Inc. Aug 2004