Project will demonstrate the conversion of low-quality gas from a closed landfill to energy.
Ener-Core Inc., an Irvine, California-based firm that designs, develops and manufactures products based on power oxidization technologies, has announced plans to install a 250 kilowatt (kW) Powerstation EC250 at a landfill in Orange County, California. The system will allow Santa Ana, California-based Orange County Waste & Recycling to generate clean electricity from a gas that is currently being flared at the landfill, which has been inactive since 1996.
The installation is part of a renewable energy project made possible by the California Energy Commission awarding $1.5 million to the University of California, Irvine’s Advanced Power & Energy Program (APEP) in January 2015. The project is in line with APEP’s mission to foster strategic alliances to facilitate the development and deployment of environmentally sensitive, sustainable power generation and energy conversion. The project also was approved by the Orange County Board of Supervisors.
The partnership’s task under the grant is to install and test a 250kW ultra-low emissions power plant at Santiago Canyon Landfill. As part of the partnership, Ener-Core will receive about $900,000 to build and install the EC250 Powerstation. The power plant will use landfill gas created from solid waste decomposition to produce electricity for site operations, which will lower the county’s utility bill. Until now, the landfill gas at Santiago Canyon has been flared because it could not be used to fuel traditional power-generation technologies.
The aim of the project—a partnership between Ener-Core, the County of Orange and APEP—is to demonstrate the feasibility of converting low-quality landfill gas from a closed landfill into clean energy under field conditions.
According to data from the EPA’s Landfill Methane Outreach Program (LMOP), at least 50 percent of the country’s landfills are at full capacity and closed. When landfills close, they typically continue to emit harmful greenhouse gases for as long as 50 to 70 years after closure. However, the quality of the gases typically falls drastically after a landfill has been closed, and hence it has historically not been feasible to generate energy from a landfill after closure. It’s for this reason that most inactive landfills elect to flare the gas emissions, rather than use them to generate energy.
The first objective of this project is to demonstrate that the Ener-Core Powerstation can reliably generate clean energy from the landfill gas after the landfill has been closed. While Ener-Core’s technology has seen demonstrated success converting waste gas at an inactive landfill in Europe, according to the company, this will be the company’s first installation on a closed landfill in California.
An additional objective of the project is to meet or exceed emission destruction efficiency and validate reliability targets as defined within project specifications over a 12-month period. The project is expected to be operational by summer 2017 and all demonstration requirements must be met by June of 2019. If the initiative proves successful, Ener-Core’s technology could be retained for long-term operation at the landfill as well as additional landfills and industries in California, according to Orange County Waste & Recycling.
Once the system is fully operational, Orange County Waste & Recycling anticipates cost savings of $240,000 per year. The project also will provide applied research opportunities for graduate and undergraduate students at APEP, who will develop and execute performance validation test plans to assess the project performance against its stated goals of generating 2GW-hr of electricity and reduce NOx emissions by nearly 1 ton per year.
“Advanced technologies that utilize bio resources are a major step to reaching environmental and national goals,” says Professor Vince McDonell, APEP’s associate director. “We are pleased to lead the strategic alliance associated with this major demonstration.”
“Creating clean energy power from landfill gas is a smart investment that helps the environment and advances science and engineering,” says Board Chairman Todd Spitzer. “Advancing an important technology that helps the environment and potentially generates revenue is the best way for Orange County to do business as a leader in clean energy projects.”
Alain Castro, CEO of Ener-Core, says, “Orange County, and Orange County Waste & Recycling, are recognized innovators in energy technology and environmental awareness, and we are honored to be a partner on this important project. Historically, converting low-quality gas to energy at closed landfills has not been feasible due to the poor quality of the gases that are emitted, and hence older landfills typically flare (burn) their gas emissions rather than use them productively. Ener-Core has a demonstrated history of converting waste gases to clean energy on a variety of industrial platforms, including landfills. We currently have an Ener-Core Powerstation deployed at a landfill site in the Netherlands, which has performed with great results, and we are confident our technology will perform similarly at this new site. Our solution offers an economically attractive and technically reliable solution for generating clean power from well over 1,000 closed landfills across the U.S., such that we can tackle a real environmental problem while at the same time contributing to the power needs of the future.”