Renewable Natural Gas: Making wastewater biogas work for you
Posted by admin on Aug. 31, 2015 / Bio Fuels, CNG, Clean Fuels Events - Statewide, Technical Workshops, Clean Fuels Infrastructure / Subscribe 0
Private and public industries in communities across the U.S. are converting their fleets to cleaner-burning, domestically produced alternative fuels. Why not power those fleets with fuel that's already produced by the community? Grand Junction, Colorado did just that, and it’s a huge success.
Biogas, a natural byproduct of landfills and wastewater treatment plants, is usually considered a nuisance that needs to be discarded in a [hopefully] cheap and safe manner. The gas is usually released into the atmosphere or flared off.
However, The City of Grand Junction, Colo., is turning the nuisance gas into a resource for the city by converting biogas into compressed natural gas (CNG).
The City of Grand Junction took its first step toward energy independence in 2010 when it purchased four CNG-powered refuse trucks. One year later, it opened a private slow-fill station to refuel those trucks and a fast-fill facility to serve private CNG vehicles. In that same year, Grand Junction was flaring off 100,000 cubic feet of biogas every day at its Persigo Wastewater Treatment Plant. The gas was 64% methane, and while 16% of the gas was used to heat the facility, the rest was flared off, into the atmosphere.
The city began investigating its options for converting to alternative fuels back in 2006 and eventually decided on a strategy that included converting biogas produced at the Persigo plant into usable CNG.
The decision to convert the biogas into a usable natural gas is largely justified by the biogas recycling plant’s return on investment, Dan Tonello, Grand Junctions’ Wastewater Service Manager, told NGT News.
“Fuel cells had an 81-year payback. Micro-turbines had a 10-year payback and converting biogas to CNG was nine years. Now that we’re up and running, we’re looking at a seven-year payback,” he said.
When this project came to fruition in April 2015, Grand Junction became the only city in the U.S. to convert biogas produced by a wastewater treatment plant into CNG.
Including the cost of a five-mile underground pipeline from the wastewater plant to the refueling station, the entire project totaled $2.8 million, $500,000 of which was paid for by a grant from the Colorado Department of Local Affairs.
Now, the biogas that for decades had been burned off and released into the atmosphere is converted into enough CNG to power Grand Junction’s entire fleet of 38 vehicles, and will also fuel the 13 more the city has ordered. The system produces the equivalent of 142,000 gallons of gasoline a year and reduces annual CO2 emissions by 3 million pounds.
An added benefit is that Grand Junction’s refueling station has generated interest and investment in CNG among private fleets and individuals in the area, along with enhancing the nation’s alternative fuel infrastructure.
“Any time you can come up with a project that saves money and shows environmental benefits, I’d say you’ve hit a home-run,” Tonello said.
Learn more about how to start a similar project in Louisiana at the Louisiana Clean Fuels and Energy Vision Renewable Natural Gas Workshop in Shreveport on September 23. More details here: http://louisianacleanfuels.org/meetinginfo.php?id=15&ts=1440688602
This blog was adapted from the NGT News post, City ‘Hits A Home Run’ with Renewable Natural Gas Project.
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