San Jose to host innovative waste-to-energy facility.

A project to turn organic waste into renewable energy and compost in San Jose
Zero Waste Energy Development is a project that converts organic waste into renewable energy and compost in San Jose, California. It uses a German technology called KompoFerm© for dry fermentation and in-vessel composting. The project has a 15-year contract with the city and will process over 270,000 tons of waste per year. It will also produce biogas that can be used for electricity and heat, with the help of 2G Energy, Inc., a company that provides low-emission biogas CHP systems.

Facts & figures

Application:
Biogas and biomethane plants
Country:
United States
CHP:
2 x avus 800c
Output el/th (kW):
2 x 800 kWel / 2 x 841 kWth
Operator:
ZeroWaste Energy Development Company

Zero Waste Energy Development is led by local companies GreenWaste Recovery and Zanker Resource Recovery and Zero Waste Energy for the purpose of developing with the City of San Jose the first-of-its-kind dry fermentation anaerobic digestion and in-vessel composting (IVC) facility utilizing the advanced and unique KompoFerm© technology. The KompoFerm© dry AD system designed and developed in Germany, and the IVC system are licensed exclusively to ZWE USA.

The City of San Jose, CA selected Zero Waste Energy Development for a 15 year contract to process all of the City's commercial organics under a new city-wide, collection system. Once this three phase project is complete, the facility will be processing over 270,000 tons per year of organic waste that would otherwise be disposed in a landfill. This increase in landfill diversion and production of renewable energy will help the San Jose and surrounding cities to meet its economic development goals and reduce its per capita energy use. The high quality compost produced will be used to enrich soils, while the renewable biogas converted to electricity will not only be sold as energy for the utility power grid, but will also be used to fuel local plants and facilities. In late 2011 ZWE selected 2G Energy, Inc. to manufacture and to supply two 2G avus 800 biogas CHP systems rated 800 ekW/h each, with an annual capacity of 13,300 MW/h and a thermal output of 1,682 kW per hour. These advanced fully containerized 2G biogas CHP modules utilize a fully integrated MWM core engine, with sophisticated heat extraction, thermal distribution, and state-of-the-art CHP controls designed by 2G. The gas treatment technology is fully included. In order to achieve local air emission limits, the system has been designed and manufactured by 2G in ultra-low emissions configuration, including a fully integrated SCR (selective catalytic reduction) system.