Facility to Help Environment
By: Jennifer Buske
The gas emitted from the regional landfill in Stafford will help power various communities in the future thanks to a national company that plans to set up shop in the county.
Ameresco, which is pegged on its Web site as America’s largest independent energy solutions provider, will be building a roughly $5 million facility next to the regional landfill that will convert methane gas into energy.
The company already has 13 operational plants across the country and is in the process of constructing nine more, including the local facility.
“This is such an environmentally-friendly thing to do,” said Shelley Cohen, senior project developer with Ameresco. “It is a win-win for the community and the environment because you are taking something that would have been wasted and putting it to use.
According to Andrew Mikel, the region’s superintendent of solid waster management, this project began about three years ago when the Rappahannock Regional Solid Waste Management board began discussing what could be done with the gas from the landfill.
The R-Board, which is made up of representatives from Stafford and Fredericksburg, solicited bids and chose Ameresco to build a plant that would transform the greenhouse gas. Currently, Mikel said, the methane emitted from the plant is “destroyed” according to state requirements.
“We just decided that we had this resource we were destroying and that it could be put to better use,” Mikel said. “Everything with Ameresco is signed and sealed and they are just working with the planning department to get everything finalized.”
Cohen said about 50 percent of the gas emitted at the landfill is methane gas. Ameresco will build wells at the landfill as well as a device that will “suck out the gas,” said said. The gas is then routed to a combustion engine, transformed to electricity and sold the Constellation NewEnergy – a supplier of electricity, natural gas and energy-related services, according to its Web site.
This project, which is slated to be finished in March, will cost Stafford nothing, Mikel said. Instead, Ameresco pays Stafford for the gas and then gets its revenue by selling to Constellation NewEnergy.
Cohen said over the course of Ameresco’s 20-year contract with the R-board, the new facility will generate roughly $1.6 million for the landfill.
Cohen said the gas collected annually from the Stafford facility will be equivalent to planting 25,500 trees annually or be enough to power 1,500 homes. It is also equivalent to removing the emissions from 17,844 vehicles annually, Cohen said, adding that as the plant expands in the future, that number will rise.
“This just made sense and it’s a good precedent to set,” Stafford Supervisor and R-board Vice Chairman Paul Milde said. “We are capturing the gas and turning it into electricity. And, the money from it will go toward operating the landfill.”
Mikel said the landfill is not tax-payer subsidized, so this will help keep it free to the community. Another benefit of this project, he said, is that Ameresco will have to upgrade the transformers surrounding the landfill from a one-phase to a three-phase, which will mean more reliable power for some residents.
Cohen and Mikel both said there is no risk involved with this process of collecting and transforming methane gas. If the facility malfunctions for any reason, there is an automatic back up.
“I think this is a neat resource, especially in a time where there are fuel crunches,” Mikel said. “And, with this, our little community is doing its part and contributing to the whole energy grid. The more of these projects that come on board, the…