The Des Moines Metropolitan Wastewater Reclamation Authority’s efforts to produce renewable fuel is now complete.
The WRA has spent multiple years and millions of dollars upgrading its facilities to create a renewable natural gas from one of its wastewater treatment processes. The facility takes a gas produced from a biological process, cleans up the gas by removing unwanted contaminants and then injects the clean gas into a local utility’s pipeline.
“Our facility is the largest wastewater treatment plant in the state of Iowa and one of the first to implement a project of this kind. We’re also the first to inject renewable natural gas into the pipeline of the utility company we worked with,” said Wastewater Reclamation Authority Director Scott Hutchens. “It’s been a long time coming but the collective hard work of many individuals has allowed this to be a very special and historical moment for our organization.
”The renewable natural gas that is injected into the pipeline is expected to provide revenues around $3,000,000 annually which will allow the WRA to offset operational and maintenance costs for the wastewater treatment facility and utilize a byproduct of the treatment process in an innovative way. Injecting renewable natural gas into a pipeline will also allow the WRA to substantially reduce its greenhouse gas emissions and carbon footprint. The amount of renewable natural gas the facility will provide daily is the equivalent volume that 5,500 average U.S. homes use on a daily basis.
Video news release is available here.