CU looks to turn trash into cash

The city of Springfield and City Utilities are discussing the creation of a new generator system that would harness the methane gas produced by decaying materials in the city’s Noble Hill landfill.

The system, which requires the drilling of wells into the landfill as well as the installation of a more advanced collection and cleaning system, would put to work gas that already is being harnessed by the city and burned off.

The 3.2 megawatts of energy that the new system would generate comprises only a small part of the city’s energy plan – the Southwest coal-fired power station alone generates 190 megawatts of energy, but CU Chief Operating Officer Bill Burks said that new energy creations are important.

“Every little bit helps,” Burks said. “Particularly given the fact that the city is going to have to invest money to build a more extensive collection system for the methane anyway, and then burn (the gas) off. We say if this is fuel that’s going to have to be collected anyway, we should be trying to find a way to use that to the best benefit of our customers.”

The proposed methane-powered generator system – a series of four 800-kilowatt generators – would operate at 93 percent capacity, compared to the 85 percent capacity factor of a coal-fired power plant like the Southwest power station.

The new system would generate less than 1 percent of the 350 to 400 megawatts of energy that the city uses during peak hours on an average day, and a far smaller percentage of the amount needed during the high-demand summer months.

Burks added that the system is still in the preliminary planning stages.

“As soon as we get a plan, we intend to move fairly quickly to get the bids, get the drawings, so that hopefully by the end of the calendar year we can maybe have some of the generation in place, maybe not all of it, but certainly heading in that direction,” he said.