In two years, the Bowerman Landfill in Irvine is expected to generate enough electricity to power more than 14,000 homes in Anaheim. How? By burning the methane all that garbage generates.
It’s wouldn’t be the first such plant for Orange County Waste and Recycling, which already has three plants generating electricity by burning trash-produced methane.
In the 2000s, OC Waste tried to build a power plant at the Bowerman Landfill to generate liquid natural gas from methane, but the technology was unproven and the market not strong enough to support it. That plan was scrapped.
So for more than a decade, the methane generated at the landfill has been burned off, as regulations require. The proposed electric plant would transform that waste into 22 megawatts of usable electricity, while creating an extra source of revenue for OC Waste.
The electric plant in a sense closes the loop, sending electricity back to homeowners who generate the waste.
“The trash leaves the house, the recyclables go to be recycled, and the materials that come to us generate landfill gas,” said Dylan Wright, the director of OC Waste. “Then it goes back to the home, or a nearby home, as electricity.”
The Bowerman plant will use a different technology than most other landfill electric plants. Rather than burn the methane to turn a turbine, like most plants, OC Waste will use a combustion-type engine that is more efficient.
Seven engines will combust the gas, drawn from the landfill’s current methane collection system, which normally flares off the gas. Even after the combustion engines are completed, the flaring system will remain as backup.
Before entering the engines, the gas will be cleaned. Almost all the methane gas from the landfill will be turned into electricity, said Chris Davis, the vice president of development at Montauk Energy, which is working on building the plant.
Transmission lines will carry the electricity from Irvine to Anaheim.
“It is a win-win for them because it’s a local resource. It will be reliable and in terms of options it’s a huge win for Orange County, as opposed to the gas being sold to Pacific Gas & Electric,” a Northern California utility.
OC Waste recently got approval from the Orange County Board of Supervisors for the electric plant, and is finishing talks with the South Coast Air Quality Management District.
Montauk plans to start construction Dec. 1.
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