Waste Not

Waste Not

May 24 - Electric Perspectives

Last January, 1,500 Bridgeport dairy cattle started generating electricity at Blue Spruce Farm for Central Vermont Public Service (CVPS). The cattle's manure is collected and heated in a large concrete tank. That creates methane gas, which fuels a generator. Blue Spruce Farm is expected to produce about 1.7 million kilowatt- hours (KWH) of energy per year.

And double-duty cows also produce whimsy. "The girls are now officially producing two streams of income, a milk check and a power check," said Earl Audet, who owns the farm along with his brothers and their families. "This is one more way to diversify the farm, improve our bottom line, and manage our manure responsibly."

The manure byproduct, which contains no pathogens, little odor and no viable weed seeds, is usable as fertilizer or animal bedding. That could save Blue Spruce Farm up to $60,000 annually.

CVPS customers can sign up to get all, half, or a quarter of their energy through CVPS Cow Power. The program collects 4 cents per KWH for the environmental benefit of the energy. That payment, along with 95 percent of the market price for energy, goes to the farm generator. If not enough farm generation is available, the funds support other renewable energy in the region or the CVPS Renewable Development Fund, set up to provide incentives to Vermont farms to build methane generators.

More than 1,000 customers have enrolled in the Cow Power program since August. About half signed up for 25 percent Cow Power, with the remainder evenly split between 50 percent and 100 percent. It takes a farm with about 500 milking cows to produce enough energy for the Cow Power concept to be economically viable.

"Many of our customers want to vote for renewable energy with their wallets," said CVPS spokesman Steve Costello. "Support of farmers, the environment, and renewable energy are key factors. People seem to like that it's local, it's practical, and it's benefiting people who work the land and help keep Vermont looking like Vermont."

In Minnesota, chickens are a power source. Fibrowatt is building a new facility in Benson that will burn 700,000 tons of poultry litter beginning in 2007. The state's poultry farmers will supply the fuel for the plant.

"In addition to providing an alternative, more environmentally- friendly method of disposing of poultry-litter waste, the plant's only by-product is ash that can be recycled as fertilizer," said Bernard C. Cherry, president and CEO of Foster Wheeler North America, the new plant's design-and-build firm.