Camden

Anaergia helped a large New Jersey (USA) wastewater treatment plant convert existing wastewater storage tanks into four 700,000-gallon anaerobic digesters so the plant can now create biogas from its sludge. The plant, called Delaware No. 1 Wastewater Pollution Control Facility, is run by the Camden County Municipal Utilities Authority, and has the capacity to treat up to 80 million gallons of wastewater per day (MGD) from about 500,000 residents in 37 municipalities.

The biogas created from the plant’s Omnivore® anaerobic digestion system can fuel Anaergia’s combined heat and power (CHP) systems to generate up to 3.8 megawatts (MW) of electricity for the facility. Excess heat from the CHP is used for the digestion system. For flexibility, the CHP generators are able to use either biogas from converted biosolids or natural gas from the local utility pipeline and can operate either parallel to the grid or in island mode.

By recovering the energy from its wastewater biosolids using Anaergia’s digesters and CHP generation, the Camden County Municipal Utilities Authority has now created a renewable energy generation center, maximizing the plant’s ability to be resilient in case of power grid outages and insulating it from price volatility. It also reduces the plant’s carbon footprint: By using biogas to displace fossil natural gas for generation, the plant has avoided emissions of 23,500 ton per year of carbon dioxide, the equivalent of taking nearly 5,000 cars off the road.

Anaergia provided the overall process design, technology, and performance guarantee for the anaerobic digestion tanks. Anaergia is currently responsible for operating and maintaining the biogas conditioning and CHP systems as part of a 20-year contract.

• Project Location: Camden, New Jersey
• Startup: 2020 (Ominvore® Digester), 2019 (CHP)
• Ominvore® Digester, Process Design, Technology and Performance Guarantee
• Design, Build, Operate for 20 years