Home Publisher's Point of View Energy Garden Harvests Power from Food Waste, Biosolids, FOG

Energy Garden Harvests Power from Food Waste, Biosolids, FOG

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In a previous position as an editor with IndustryWeek magazine I had an opportunity to visit some of the best manufacturing facilities in America. This past week I visited what has got to be one of the coolest ones. In case you missed it in last week’s newsletter, Harvest Power recently opened its Central Florida Energy Garden in Bay Lake, Fla. What the plant “manufactures” is energy and fertilizer from three different waste streams—food scraps; fats, oil and grease (FOG); and biosolids from an adjacent water treatment plant. Together, this “waste” is “digested” in an anaerobic digester with the resulting products being biogas (mostly methane) and solids useable as fertilizer.

To get a sense of how the plant works you really need to visit it. Briefly, food waste—including meat, bones, shellfish, etc.—is trucked in from various facilities including hotels, restaurants, schools, etc. and then dumped into a pit where it is then run through a machine that filters out packaging, metals, etc. The slurry is then fed into the digester. Meanwhile, the FOG and biosolids are also piped into the digester. In the digester the waste mix is broken down into useable gas and solids in just 30 days. In a landfill the process would take five years. Any debris that can be recycled is recycled. Only a very small percentage goes to a landfill. An odor control system keeps any odors to a minimum.

The biogas is used to power two 1.6 MW engines that in turn power generators that produce 3.2 MW of electricity hourly. The generators have the capacity to power the equivalent of 16,000 homes annually—the equivalent of 3 percent of the electricity needs of the Reedy Creek Improvement District where the plant is located. Excess heat from the engines is sent across the plant to dry the solids that end up as useable fertilizer.

Location is key to this facility. According to Christopher Peters, Regional Vice President, Orlando, for Harvest Power, the plant is within range of about 1,500 lodging establishments. He adds there is potential for additional Florida plants in Tampa, Miami, and the Space Coast area. There needs to be enough waste available to justify the cost of building a plant. Disney area resorts are already sending food waste to the Bay Lake plant and four other hotels are as well. (Watch for an article this coming week regarding the participation of the two resorts within Grande Lakes Orlando.)

Capacity of 150 Tons a Day

The plant has been operational for just a couple of months. It has a capacity of 150 tons a day and is currently taking in 60 to 70 tons daily. Properties within the Reedy Creek Improvement District are currently sending about 50 tons a day. Disney properties account for most of that amount.

I asked Harvest Power’s Peters about the cost of using the plant compared to sending food waste to a landfill. He said disposal costs are typically less or at least the same. “Our prices are going to be more consistent,” he says. Of course being able to say your property is participating in such a closed-loop process is priceless.

With so much of the waste from full-service hotels and resorts being food waste, it is critical that our industry seek out, participate in, and support in any way possible the kind of facilities that companies like Harvest Power are building. It is the kind of innovation that makes everyone a winner.

Got comments? I can be reached at editor@greenlodgingnews.com. Interested in learning more about the Bay Lake facility? Contact Christopher Peters at cpeters@harvestpower.com, or by phone at (954) 732-5107.

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