Construction is complete and operations have begun
at the Crapo Hill Landfill in Dartmouth, Massachusetts on the CRMC
Bioenergy Facility, an anaerobic digestion project developed by
CommonWealth Resource Management Corporation (“CRMC”) in
cooperation with the Greater New Bedford Regional Refuse Management
District, the Landfill owner. The Bioenergy Facility will produce biogas
for use as a supplemental fuel by an existing 3.3 MW landfill gas-fired
electric power generating facility at the Landfill that is owned and
operated by a CRMC subsidiary. That subsidiary currently purchases
landfill gas from the District, and also leases the site at the Landfill
on which the two projects are co-located.
In addition to producing biogas, operation of the Bioenergy Facility
at the Landfill is expected to enable the District, a public entity
whose members include the Town of Dartmouth and the City of New Bedford,
Massachusetts, to adapt to changes in the state’s solid waste
management regulations regarding food wastes and other organics. A
ban on the disposal of such materials generated by commercial sources,
which recently went into effect in Massachusetts, could have a long-term impact on the District’s landfilling operations and its position in the regional solid waste marketplace.
Users of the Bioenergy Facility are expected to include supermarket
chains, food processors, schools, hospitals and other commercial and
institutional entities that generate food wastes, as well as waste
haulers that collect and transport food wastes, FOG and biosolids for
disposal.
The Bioenergy Facility is the first of its kind to be sited at an operating Massachusetts
Landfill, and the first developed in the state to produce biogas for
use in an existing grid-connected landfill gas-to-energy facility.The two facilities operate symbiotically in what is often referred to as a “virtuous cycle”. While
biogas produced by the Bioenergy Facility helps fuel the landfill gas
facility, the power produced by, and waste heat recovered from, the power plant’s generators is being used to satisfy the Bioenergy Facility electric and thermal energy requirements.