$5m in US Recovery Act funding will leverage $22m for eight biogas projects

23 December 2009

The US is investing $5m in federal recovery money in eight alternative energy projects that use biological materials such as sewage, animal and food processing waste to generate enough energy to power more than 80,000 homes.

‘By wisely investing our federal stimulus dollars in large-scale alternative energy projects, we are aggressively moving forward to meet our future long-term energy needs, while creating multiple short-term benefits,’ said Pennsylvania’s Governor Edward Rendell. ‘These projects will put Pennsylvanians to work now constructing long-term assets that will supply residents with a significant amount of electricity for years to come. These projects will stimulate the economy by creating jobs and attracting additional investment capital needed to bring the projects to completion.’

The Governor’s office says the projects will leverage an additional $22m in private investments, with the eight projects generating more than 470,000 MWh of electricity over their lifetimes.

The Green Energy Works! biogas grants are part of a $52m initiative which uses Recovery Act money to fund innovative projects designed to help increase energy efficiency, reduce reliance on foreign energy sources, improve service reliability and reduce the impact of energy production on the environment. The Green Energy Works! initiative is also funding large-scale combined heat and power, solar and wind projects.

‘These projects are examples of how by taking a non-traditional approach to meeting our energy needs, we can produce unique and multi-beneficial opportunities,’ said Governor Rendell. ‘Power generation, waste management, job creation and economic growth are all tied together – made possible by federal stimulus money and progressive-thinking Pennsylvanians who will help drive the commonwealth to a state of energy independence.’

The largest of the awards is a $1.25m grant to Schreiber Foods to install a 1.1MW biogas-powered energy recovery system at a dairy plant expansion project in Cumberland, Maryland. NativeEnergy received the second largest award of $893,752 to construct biodigesters on five dairy farms. The smallest award of $254,382 was awarded to Anergy to construct anaerobic digesters to produce biogas to generate electricity and improve manure management at three small dairy farms in Lebanon, Ohio.

Copyright © 2009 NewNet

Tags: biogas

This story was published on Wednesday, December 23rd, 2009 at 1:36 pm and is filed under North America, biomass/biofuel, deals. You can follow any responses to article entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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