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Byline: MICHAEL FICKES

MAKING USE OF landfill gas (LFG) is not only good for the environment. In an era of rising energy costs, the gas has emerged as a way to turn trash into cheap energy and generate powerful economic benefits.

Every year, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) Landfill Methane Outreach Program (LMOP) confers awards that recognize the innovative strategies of organizations that use LFG to generate electricity, heat, hot water, environmental benefits and good will. This year, the Washington, D.C.-based LMOP, a voluntary program that helps to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by supporting landfill gas-to-energy (LFGE) project development, announced five award winners. Each organization has designed an LFGE project for business and environmental benefits. LMOP and Waste Age congratulate this year's winners.

Project of the Year: BMW Manufacturing

For the past year, the BMW Manufacturing facility in Spartanburg, S.C., has been generating electricity to power its operations. This is a dramatic shift from two years ago, when the plant was purchasing all of its electrical power.

BMW production facilities typically co-generate power. The original design of the Spartanburg facility, which was built in 1992, included four 1.25 megawatt (MW) natural gas turbines for co-generation. But the turbines sat idle for a decade because purchasing electricity directly cost less than the natural gas required to run the generating equipment.

In 2000, however, BMW executives wondered if it might be possible to cut utility expenses by running the turbine generators with LFG obtained from the neighboring Palmetto landfill, which is owned by Houston-based Waste Management Inc. BMW solicited proposals and settled on an idea presented by Ameresco, an energy service firm based in Framingham, Mass.

Over the next three years, BMW, Ameresco and Waste Management hammered out a 20-year agreement, under which Ameresco would purchase 4,000 cubic feet per minute (cfm) of LFG from Palmetto and resell it to BMW.

A big challenge arose in building a 9.5-mile pipeline to transport LFG from the landfill to the BMW plant. While slogging through one of the rainiest periods in South Carolina history, the company laid a high-density polyethylene (HDPE) pipe under a river, major highway crossings, a railroad crossing and rocky terrain, taking care to avoid existing underground utility installations. Next, Ameresco installed a processing plant at Palmetto to clean, dry and compress the LFG. Meanwhile, BMW modified its four natural gas turbines to work with LFG. The modifications were necessary because LFG contains only about half the methane of natural gas. So the equipment has to burn more LFG to reach maximum electricity production levels.

The system went online in April 2003. Today, the modified BMW turbines are pumping out 4.4 MWs of electricity, which supply about one-quarter of BMW's electricity needs. The system also satisfies the plant's hot water requirements and a substantial portion of its heating and cooling requirements.

In addition to cutting BMW's utility costs, the installation has reduced methane emissions by roughly the same amount that is produced by driving 105 million miles per year.

Project of the Year: Antioch Community High School

Like most businesses, educational institutions must struggle to contain costs. In a school, money spent to light, heat and cool buildings is money not spent to educate students.

In 2001, RMT Inc., an energy services firm based in Madison, Wis., approached administrators at the 262,000 square-foot (sq. ft.) Antioch Community High School in Antioch, Ill., and suggested an LFG project that would enable the school to cut its utility costs by generating its own electricity from LFG.

The gas would come from the HOD landfill, a Waste Management facility that had closed 16 years before and was situated only a half mile away - at a Superfund site. The EPA and state of Illinois had recently established final closure activities for the site. As part of the activities, an LFG management system with 35 LFG extraction wells, a blower and a flare were installed.

RMT and school officials discussed the idea for a year and negotiated an agreement under which RMT would turn the LFG into Antioch's primary energy source. To fund the project, RMT acquired a $500,000 grant from Illinois, and the school district issued $1.5 million in bonds.

The project became operational in October 2003, and the high school became the first in the country to use LFG to produce both heat and electricity. "The system supplies most of the school's power," says Mark Torresani, RMT project manager for the job. "[The school] can buy extra electricity when it needs it. During periods when the system produces more power than it needs, it sells electricity to the grid."

RMT's original estimates suggested that the system would save the school $100,000 per year in utility costs. With today's higher natural gas prices, however, the savings have increased to $120,000 per year and slashed the payback period to well within the 20-year projected LFG supply.

The landfill produces a fairly small amount of LFG. According to Torresani, RMT had to design a system that would get the most out of just 300 cfm of LFG. Over time, gas production likely will decline to even lower volumes.

The key to the design is 12 microturbines, manufactured by Chatsworth, Calif.-based Capstone Turbine Corp., that produce 360 kilowatts (KWs) of electricity when operating together. "When the gas level drops off, we can take out one turbine and run 11, and so on," Torresani says. "At that point, the system will produce less power, but will still produce some power. That's the advantage of many small engines compared to one large engine."

Other components of the system are fairly standard. At the landfill, RMT installed a gas compressor and a super chiller to compress, clean and dry the gas, making it fit the microturbines' requirements. RMT also installed a one-half mile pipeline to move the gas from the landfill to the school. The HDPE line was installed beneath a stream, a road, a baseball field and a railroad track at depths of 4 to 6 feet.

"Not only has this project turned a former Superfund landfill into a source of renewable energy, this project serves as a great learning tool for the students and the community," Voell says.

Community Partner of the Year: Prince George's County, Md.

Prince George's County, Md., has worked in the LFG field for 20 years. Last year's projects include an LFG generating facility that sells electricity to the grid and earns $750,000 in revenues for the county. During 2003, the county also facilitated the development of an LFG system that provides heat for NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, located in Greenbelt, a suburb of Washington, D.C. Goddard is the first federal facility in the nation to use LFG.

Prince George's County has been using LFG since 1985, when its Department of Environmental Resources (DER) engineered an LFG recovery system for the Brown Station Road landfill, along with an LFG-fired electric power generator.

The installation includes a compressor and a pipeline that carries LFG 2.5 miles to the county's correctional facility. There, three 850 KW generators powered by LFG-fired Waukesha engines produce power for the prison. The generating facility was commissioned in October 1987 and was one of the earliest LFG-fired electric generating facilities on the East Coast.

Last year, the county expanded the LFG operations at the Brown Station Road site, adding an electricity generating plant that sells power to the electrical grid and generates about $750,000 per year in revenues. The project represents an important step in that the county and the landfill owner have formed an agreement with a local utility and a grid interconnection company. "Usually, this is done through a contractor, and the landfill gets a revenue split," says William P. Chamberlin, associate director of the waste management division for the DER. "Here, we own the facility and receive 100 percent of the revenues."

While the county was expanding its LFG operations at Brown Station Road, it also was working with Waste Management Inc., which operates the county's Sandy Hill landfill, and Dallas-based Toro Energy Inc. to facilitate a direct use project for NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. Under the agreement, LFG from Sandy Hill is compressed, dewatered, cleaned and piped to the center, which uses the gas to generate heat. "Goddard expects to save $300,000 per year on utility costs through this project," says Chris Voell, program manager for LMOP.

Energy Partner of the Year: General Motors