March 24, 2003—The Essex Junction Wastewater Treatment facility in Essex Junction, Vt., has selected Northern Power Systems to engineer, build, and install a $245,000 onsite power system that will burn methane gas produced by wastewater processing to generate electricity and heat for the facility.
The new cogeneration system will produce over 400,000 kilowatt-hours of electrical output per year—equivalent to 41 percent of the facility’s current annual demand. The system is expected to yield a total annual electric utility savings of about $30,000.
According to Dan Reicher, executive vice president of Northern Power Systems, the system developed with the Essex Junction facility has widespread applicability nationwide. “An EPA Clean Water Needs Survey indicates that there are some 3,300 wastewater treatment facilities similar to the Essex Junction plant in the United States,” he says. “From delivering basic electricity, to cost reductions and reduced environmental impact, this type of system design delivers terrific value for anaerobic digestion wastewater treatment facilities.”
Efficiency Vermont, Vermont’s energy efficiency utility, committed $40,000 toward the cost of the cogeneration project. NativeEnergy, a Vermont-based renewable energy company, provided significant additional financial support through its up-front purchase of the “renewable energy credits” the project will generate. The project was also supported by the Biomass Energy Resource Center, an independent, nonprofit organization Vermont that assists in the development of sustainable biomass energy projects worldwide.
