New 3-Megawatt Landfill Gas Project Online in Wisconsin

April 21, 2004

Dairyland Power Cooperative and Eau Claire Energy Cooperative announced on April 12th that a new 3-megawatt landfill-gas-to-energy project is now online in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. Dairyland is buying the waste gas from the Seven Mile Creek Landfill and converting it into electricity in a facility designed and built by Ameresco. Dairyland is also working to install anaerobic digesters at several dairy farms in its service territory. The digesters convert manure into a biogas that is used to produce electricity, and are expected to begin producing power later this year. See the Dairyland press release.

Anaerobic digestion has been gaining momentum in the Midwest, and new projects are starting up in other states outside the region. In Idaho, for instance, Intrepid Technology and Resources, Inc. is planning to build an anaerobic digestion complex north of Rupert that will convert the manure from 4,000 dairy cows into a biogas. The company plans to sell the biogas as a heating fuel and is establishing a test center to develop and commercialize new commercial uses of the biogas, which is primarily methane. And thanks to a grant from the DOE-funded State Technologies Advancement Collaborative, southern New Mexico will soon get its first anaerobic digester. The New Mexico Energy Conservation Management Division (ECMD) is leading a partnership to build a digester that will use low amounts of water to convert 5,000 tons of cow manure each year into more than a half-million kilowatt-hours of electricity. See the press releases from Intrepid and the New Mexico ECMD (PDF 137 KB). Download Acrobat Reader.