OLD TOWN, Maine — Juniper Ridge Landfill operators say they have found a partner to use the landfill-produced methane gas, equivalent to about 8,000 gallons of heating oil on a daily basis.
Aria Energy, headquartered in Novi, Michigan, is partnering with Casella Waste Systems, which operates the state-owned landfill, to develop, construct, own and operate a 4.8 megawatt gas-to-energy plant located at Juniper Ridge.
“They are a company who operate a lot of landfill gas-to-energy projects,” Don Meagher, manager of planning and development for Casella, said Friday of Aria. “This is what they do.”
Casella and Aria have four similar partnerships at landfills in Morrisonville, Angelica and Stanley, New York, and Newport, Connecticut.
The Old Town facility, which will burn methane gas generated through organic decomposition at the landfill to make electricity, could potentially power more than 4,800 homes with renewable energy, according to a press release from Aria.
“We’ll sell the gas to the plant and then they sell the power,” Meagher said. “A renewable energy credit is another source of revenue that [Aria will] get.”
The gas-to-energy project also is similar to the one at the Pine Tree Landfill in Hampden, put into place by Casella in 2008, Meagher said.
“We’ve been making power here since January 2008,” he said. “We have generated, to date, in excess of 77 million kilowatt hours. We put it out on the grid, and it goes wherever it goes.”
In Old Town, “we didn’t really have the capital to build the plant ourselves,” Meagher said “And we just wanted to have somebody else.”
The Old Town power plant will be situated on a parcel inside the 70-acre landfill and construction is expected to start in early 2016, with operations starting in 2017. The estimated cost to design and build the plant is not known at this point, Meagher said, adding Aria also will need to get local and state permits to sell the electricity.
Messages left Friday for Aria’s representative about the design and construction cost estimates were not immediately returned.
Aria owns or operates renewable energy projects in 16 states.
“The Juniper Ridge Landfill project adds to our portfolio of owned and operated landfill gas projects that play a critical role in powering more homes with electricity generated from renewable energy resources,” Richard DiGia, president and CEO of Aria Energy, said in the statement.
Juniper Ridge landfill officials worked for years on a plan to use the methane produced at the landfill to provide the University of Maine with cheap, renewable heat for the campus, but that idea was scrapped in February 2014 over financing.
The university and Casella reached a fuel deal in November 2011 after about three years of discussions, but costs made the project unfeasible, Meagher said.
He said Casella officials are extremely happy the untapped energy steam, which is going to waste, will be recycled and used to make electricity.
“Chemically, it’s the same as natural gas, but the important difference is that it’s not a fossil fuel. I’s renewable energy,” Meagher said of methane.