Victor Valley facility marks the first in California to make renewable natural gas from both wastewater and food waste, and inject into a utility pipeline.
Anaergia has announced its subsidiary SoCal Biomethane will officially commission operations at the Victor Valley Wastewater Reclamation Authority (VVWRA) facility in Victorville, California. The facility marks the first wastewater treatment plant in California, the company claimed, to inject renewable natural gas made from both wastewater solids and food waste into a utility pipeline.
The Anaergia subsidiary upgraded VVRWA’s existing wastewater treatment plant, retrofitting existing anaerobic digesters with its Omnivore technology and biogas conditioning and upgrading technology package that produces pipeline-quality renewable natural gas (RNG). The additional technologies allow the facility to not only process wastewater, but also take food waste collected by the region’s waste haulers, preventing methane emissions from these sources and creating renewable, carbon-negative fuel to replace fossil natural has. The facility will be capable of producing and injecting up to 320,000 MMBTU of RNG into the region’s gas utility pipeline each year.
The new plant will assist local municipalities in complying with California’s Senate Bill 1383 regulations, which require every municipality to divert residents’ and businesses’ food and other organic waste from landfills, with the goal of reducing the amount of organic waste landfilled by 75% by 2025.
Andrew Benedek, chairman and CEO of Anaergia, said: “Anaergia offers a set of technologies that convert existing infrastructure at wastewater treatment plants into highly efficient systems capable of treating both wastewater residual solids as well as food waste. In this way, existing infrastructure can be extended to serve new California requirements in a very efficient way.
“The net result is beneficial to all concerned, as it lowers the cost of operating a wastewater plant, helps the municipality meet the organic waste disposal requirements, and helps our planet by creating carbon-negative fuel.”
