Palm Beach County's new renewable energy plant will begin commercial operations this summer.
Facility operators at the Solid Waste Authority (SWA) of Palm Beach County, West Palm Beach, Florida, began feeding post-recycled municipal solid waste (MSW) into the first of three processing lines at Renewable Energy Facility 2 (REF 2). The “first fire” occurred at 1:53 p.m. Tuesday, February 24, 2015. Further testing of the three processing lines will continue in the coming weeks.
Considered one of the most advanced and cleanest waste-to-energy (WTE) power plants in North America, REF 2 will process more than 1 million tons of postrecycled MSW each year, while providing power for an estimated 40,000 homes and businesses. REF 2 will reduce the reliance on the SWA’s landfill by up to 90 percent, while also recycling an estimated 27,000 tons of steel, aluminum, copper and other metals annually after the trash is burned.
REF 2 will be operated in strict accordance with the most stringent environmental emission requirements imposed on any similar facility currently operated in the United States, according to SWA. To do so, construction plans have incorporated Babcock & Wilcox Vølund WaVe Grate technology, which will provide for more complete combustion of waste, as well as state-of-the-art air pollution control technologies, including selective catalytic reduction (SCR) for nitrogen oxides (NOx) control.
The SWA’s REF 2 is scheduled to begin commercial operation in summer 2015 at Palm Beach Renewable Energy Park.
REF 2 is the newest component to be added to the SWA’s award winning integrated solid waste management system. This system includes six transfer stations that consolidate curbside collection and keeps smaller trucks off our roadways; a recovered materials processing facility that processes all the county’s recyclables for market; one (soon to be two) renewable energy facility that burns postrecycled garbage to create energy; a Class I and Class III landfill, which is the last resort for garbage disposal; seven home chemical and recycling centers that safely dispose of or recycle home hazards; a biosolids processing facility that turns sludge from flush to fertilizer; and a Greenway Trail System with 300 acres of natural area that includes almost 4 miles of trails and a bird rookery that is home to many listed species and has provided for the environmentally safe and sustainable recycling and disposal of all the solid waste generated in Palm Beach County for 40 years.
The team of KBR, Houston; Babcock & Wilcox, Barberton, Ohio; and CDM Smith, Cambridge, Massachusetts, are the SWA’s design and construction partners in this $670 million project. The construction labor force exceeded 900 people, of which more than 24 percent of the skilled and 80 percent of the unskilled labor were Palm Beach County residents. In addition, more than $132 million in goods and services haves been spent with Palm Beach County businesses and more than $27 million expended with small business enterprises.