Dive Brief:

• Plans for an anaerobic digestion facility in Kahului, HI could put a local composting facility out of business — an issue that's concerning residents, as reported by The Maui News. The compost facility was originally established to divert green waste from a space-limited landfill.
• Maui EKO Systems has been processing the island's green waste for over 20 years, though the company's contract with the county is expiring soon and may not be extended beyond 2019. The new anaerobic digestion facility would be located at the Wailuku-Kahului Wastewater Reclamation Facility and generate 4500 MW h of electricity yearly. Anaergia, the company behind the proposed AD project, would sell electricity to the county at $0.29 per KW h as part of a 20-year contract.
• The facility would also dry the county's 24,000 tons of annual biosolids for use as fertilizer or other purposes. A final draft of an environmental impact statement, necessary for the project to move forward, is expected later this year.

Dive Insight:

Notably, Anaergia is not charging the county any up-front cost for construction of the facility, but instead, counting on revenue from selling electricity back to the county to make up for capital investments. This is an ambitious approach to the contract, especially considering the large price tags that AD facilities can have, running in the tens of millions of dollars to construct.

In addition to concerns that normally come with waste-related infrastructure (odor, air pollution), the cost of electricity being sold back to the county has some residents concerned. Residents and environmental watchdogs said the $0.29 per KW h is more than double what the county pays for electricity from wind farms or traditional, fossil-fuel based electricity. 

Anaergia in 2014 signed a 20-year contract to build a waste conversion facility at the Central Maui Landfill. While related, because the wastewater treatment AD facility would likely provide dry biosolids for the conversion facility, local government officials told The Maui News the projects were separate. 

The company has been active lately, recently partnering with Waste Management in California to process organics as part of the investment in recycLA.