Landfill to house energy plant

By: Cara Latham
   FLORENCE — A $14.6 million energy plant that will create electricity from methane gas at the county-owned landfill straddling the Florence-Mansfield border was approved by the Burlington County freeholders last week.
   The plant will be built almost entirely within Florence Township at the landfill, and will produce enough energy to power about 8,000 homes, according to Mary Pat Robbie, director of the Department of Resource Conservation at the Burlington Resource Recovery Complex.
   The Burlington County Board of Chosen Freeholders approved three separate contracts related to the project last week with DCO Energy LLC, based in Atlantic City, said Ms. Robbie. DCO Energy will construct the 6,500-square-foot facility on 180-by-280-foot site. The contracts call for the operations to begin by October 2007, she said. The first contract calls for the $14.6 million to build the facility, which the county is paying DCO Energy to do.
   The rest of the contracts will actually see revenues coming back to the county — DCO Energy is committing to return to the county a minimum of $1.75 million in revenue, and under the lease agreement, will be making a payment to the county that will be equal to what the county pays on debt service for the construction, Ms. Robbie said. That will total close to $3 million every year falling back to the county, she said.
   "We just had to structure this deal so that the county continues to own the land, we own the building, but DCO Energy will be the owner of the equipment," and will be able to take advantage of tax credits, she said.
   The facility will contain a methane generating facility consisting of five reciprocating engines that convert methane gas produced by decomposing organic waste into marketable electricity, she said.
   "We will produce from these five engines approximately 7.125 megawatts of electricity," of which 1.4 megawatts will be used to power the facilities at the landfill’s resource recovery complex, Ms. Robbie said. "The other will be sold back to the power supply grid."
   In this case, PSE&G is responsible for transmission of electricity, but DCO Energy will sell the electricity produced by the facility via the PSE&G transmission lines to enter the main power supply. PJM Interconnection, a regional transmission organization, then examines the power distribution and sends the electricity to where it is needed most, she said.
   DCO Energy can "choose to sell (the electricity) to PJM or anywhere on open market to whoever’s going to pay the highest amount," she said.
   Under the 20-year agreements, the county will get a minimum of 60 percent from any revenues of the power sales, and DCO Energy will retain the remaining 40 percent, said Ms. Robbie.
   "Under one of the contracts, they have guaranteed to the county that we will see $1.75 million every year," she said.
   Revenue will be put back into the solid waste system, which has been operating "more or less" at a deficit over the past several years because of the deregulation of waste flow controls and because the county, at one time, had the authority to tell the waste generator where it must dispose of the waste, said Ms. Robbie.
   "We saw a decrease in revenues because a lot of waste is going to out-of-state, less-expensive landfills," she said. "This guaranteed flow of revenue will certainly help in that regard. Not only do we get the revenue, we also don’t have to pay out for electricity."
   The facility will also create environmental benefits.
   The landfill gas is considered to be a green source of energy because the energy produced will displace that equal amount of energy that would otherwise be used by fossil fuel burning plants, said Ms. Robbie, adding that there will be a decrease in air emissions associated with the burning of fossil fuel.
   "I’m just so happy to see this facility reach this point," said Ms. Robbie. "We’ve been talking about this for many years, and the whole time we’ve been talking, we’ve been flaring our gas — burning it (to destroy any contaminants) and not putting it to any great beneficial use," except for the small amount used to heat a boiler at the greenhouse.
   "It will put that gas to great use," she added.