Dive Brief:
- Rumpke has teamed up with Energy Developments to build a landfill gas-to-energy facility at the Brown County Landfill in Georgetown, OH, as reported by Waste 360.
- Gas is currently collected through 80 wells at the site and flared. The new facility will use this gas to produce 4.8 MW of electricity, enough to power about 3,000 homes, that will go to American Municipal Power.
- The $8 million facility, which will be owned and operated by Energy Developments, is expected to be operational in April 2017.
Dive Insight:
According to Rumpke, the company has been extracting landfill gas for energy for 30 years and this will be its third project. Energy Developments has a global presence, including 100 MW of energy generated from landfill gas in the U.S. The majority of that energy is generated in Ohio and also goes to American Municipal Power.
Based on data from the Environmental Research & Education Foundation (EREF), Ohio managed 84% of its municipal solid waste via landfills and was one of the top waste importers in 2013. This presents numerous opportunities for energy creation from the gas generated and the state has been taking advantage of them. According to the Environmental Protection Agency's most recent data more than half of the state's 38 eligible landfills currently have some form of gas-to-energy operational.
While state-specific standards in places such as California have made these operations a little more complicated, they remain a popular option overall. New projects continue to be announced throughout the country on a regular basis and based on EPA data, there are still hundreds of "candidate" sites left to go.
