State's Public Service Department awards $270,000 to two firms to process leftover food scraps.
The Vermont Public Service Department (PSD) has awarded two Vermont-based companies, Casella Resource Solutions, Rutland, and Grow Compost, Waterbury, with Clean Energy Development Fund grants to build and operate pilot projects to demonstrate the feasibility of anaerobic digestion (AD) of food scraps.
Casella’s grant totals $139,000, while Grow Compost’s grant totals $131,549.
The PSD collaborated with the Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food and Markets (VAAFM) and the Vermont Agency of Natural Resources (ANR) to design the program and develop the agreements with the two companies. PSD also worked with Green Mountain Power, which contributed $70,000 of refunded nuclear insurance money to allow the PSD to make it possible to support the two projects to advance statewide renewable energy and recycling goals.
Both companies will use the grant funds to collect and process leftover food scraps from businesses and institutions and deliver them to farm-based anaerobic digesters where they will be used to produce heat and power. With its grant, Casella will begin separating out food scraps and deliver them to one of its transfer stations where it will be processed into a slurry. After processing, the material will be shipped to an anaerobic digester operating at a dairy farm in in Bridport, Vermont.
Meanwhile, Grow Compost is considering the purchase of a truck that will allow the company to process material on the vehicle. After the food waste has been processed, the company would deliver the raw material to an anaerobic digester at the Vermont Technical College’s campus in Randolph.
“To meet our state’s energy needs we need to find sources of sustainable and environmentally sound power. The Public Service Department is pleased to be able to support not only renewable energy generation, but also on-farm anaerobic digestion and food scrap recycling,” says Christopher Recchia, commissioner of the PSD.
“Vermont agriculture has led the nation in many ways. For instance, we have more on-farm manure digesters compared to our number of cows than any other state. These two pilot projects will help create a new model to guide how food scraps can be used as a safe and valuable resource for farmers who operate digesters, keeping Vermont’s farmers at the forefront of renewable energy,” says Chuck Ross, secretary of Vermont’s Agency of Agriculture.
“These are two great projects,” says Deborah Markowitz, secretary of the Agency of Natural Resources. “Vermont’s Universal Recycling law sets the stage for Vermonters to take valuable materials—like food scraps—out of our waste stream. Anaerobic digestion will let us use these materials to produce heat and power. What a great way to demonstrate the multiple benefits from recycling our natural resources. Projects like these not only produce renewable energy, but they save on our limited landfill space, they promote clean water and help us fight climate change through reduced greenhouse gas emissions.”