City of Springfield hopes to have Renewable Natural Gas project in place by late fall 2025 - KY3
City of Springfield hopes to have Renewable Natural Gas project in place by late fall 2025
SPRINGFIELD, Mo. (KY3) - City of Springfield Environmental Services provided an update on its Renewable Natural Gas (RNG) project at the June 4 City Council Lunch Workshop. The project proposes to convert biogas generated at Springfield’s Noble Hill Sanitary Landfill and Southwest Wastewater Treatment Plant into renewable natural gas and deliver the renewable energy source to the grid of natural gas pipelines.
Biogas is a naturally-occurring gas that consists mainly of methane and carbon dioxide but can also include small amounts of hydrogen sulfide and moisture.
“Both of those types of facilities, just by the very nature of the way they function and work, environmentally produce biogas,” explained Environment Services Assistant Director Eric Roberts. "
During their presentation the Environmental Services representatives explained that biogas is a byproduct of a number of different sources including solid waste and sewage sludge, yard and crop waste, food waste and manure.
The Noble Hill Sanitary Landfill is one of only 17 landfills remaining in the state. Opened in 1995, the current area of waste at the landfill is 213 acres with the average depth of waste at 90 feet. The average annual amount of waste is 330,000 tons.
“The way you collect that gas at the landfill is to bore holes into the waste mass,” Roberts said. “Then there’s a piping network that’s currently over 70,000 linear feet of pipe that goes to a device we call a blower flare. Essentially that’s a large vacuum or large fan that applies suction to the landfill. And as the landfill produces that gas, it pulls it out, pressurizes it and eventually runs it through some conditioning and cleaning equipment to bring it up to a similar quality and quantity of natural gas. Then it’s either flared or injected into the natural gas pipeline.”
“It’s a similar process at the wastewater plant,” said Environmental Services Assistant Director Ron Petering. “It’s created in the breakdown of the organic matter that we process on the solid side of the wastewater treatment. As that occurs, the gas is produced and it basically rises and accumulates. Then we offtake it and send it on to its next use.”
There are several options for how the city can make money off the sale of biogas. Besides selling the product to gas companies the product can be used for fuel, electricity and thermal applications.
One possible client could be City Utilities.
“Yes, we’ve had a number of discussions with them,” Petering said. “They are one logical client here who could take this gas and utilize it.”
The combined cost for construction at both the landfill and plant would be over $31 million with operating and maintenance costs around $3 million.
It’s estimated that the project could generate between $4-19 million in annual revenue meaning that on the low end it would take around eight years to pay for itself. But officials are optimistic that biogas recovery and selling is a good investment.
“We have some consultants who are familiar with marketing to the natural gas communities so we have some experts on board to help us with this,” Petering pointed out. “What we do with the product and the ability to monetize that as a revenue source helps everyone. It’s helping us create the highest and best use of this gas that is already being produced by the landfill and wastewater plant. So it’s a community-wide benefit from an environmental standpoint.”
City Council approved the use of the design-build project delivery method for the project in March. Environmental Services issued a Request for Qualifications from design-build teams this spring and is expecting design proposals from shortlisted firms in August. The project is anticipated to begin this fall, with a goal of bringing RNG capability online in fall of 2025.
To report a correction or typo, please email digitalnews@ky3.com
Copyright 2024 KY3. All rights reserved.
Related Knowledge Center: ENERGY BASICS: renewables
Renewable energy sources — once the fuel of the future, then practical in specific, narrow applications — are increasingly economic mainstream sources of power generation. Hydropower was long the mainstay of U.S. renewable electricity generation, although wind power surpassed hydro for the first time in 2019, and solar continues its rapid growth. The continued growth of wind and solar, with their fluctuations, is tied in part to improvements in storage technology: batteries.