If Napa and the city’s trash-hauling partner have their way, local wood scraps may soon bypass the dump – and help feed the electrical grid instead.
A pair of plants to gasify wood wastes and generate power is a centerpiece of the new contract the city is pursuing with Napa Recycling & Waste Services, which would keep the company in charge of local waste management through 2031. The company would then draw fresh revenue from selling power to PG&E out of a new 2-megawatt biomass facility at the Devlin Road transfer station.
“When it has an energy value, it seems ridiculous not to take advantage of that,” the city’s recycling and solid waste manager Kevin Miller told council members of the wood-to-power plan.
The proposed 14-year deal with Napa Recycling, which would extend a relationship that began in 2005, gained preliminary support Tuesday night from the City Council and is slated for an approval vote by late November. Napa’s current contract, originally a decade long and extended twice, is set to expire Dec. 31.
“I appreciate the creativity the city and Napa Recycling has shown,” said Vice Mayor Juliana Inman, who joined the other four council members in endorsing the plan. “… You came up with another way to deal with our bio-wastes, and I think this is really great.”
Under the new agreement, two plants with a 1-megawatt capacity each would be built at an estimated $12.6 million cost, and would generate their power by heating urban wood scrap into a gas that would drive electrical turbines, Napa Recycling directors told the city. The plants would combine to generate about 15,000 megawatt-hours annually, which Miller estimated would supply about 2,200 households.
Ten percent of the power would be used for the recycling center’s needs, and the rest would flow into the PG&E grid to produce about $1.75 million of extra revenue per year, according to Miller. The state policy for biomass plants of less than 3 megawatts assures PG&E will pay at least 12.7 cents for each megawatt-hour generated, he added.
To read the full story, visit http://napavalleyregister.com/news/local/future-napa-recycling-plant-may-turn-city-s-wood-waste/article_85f2633d-c45d-5555-9020-73a93b1c4414.html.