With help from a $500,000 grant, city of Brookfield officials are crafting plans to use the biogas that comes from sewage to generate electricity for its wastewater treatment plant, the Fox River Water Pollution Control Center.
"We have to burn the biogas anyway to get rid of it, so now we're using it instead of wasting it," Public Works Director Thomas Grisa said. "We're being green in two ways — economically and environmentally.
The grant, accepted by the city's Water and Sewer Board on Dec. 10, is part of Focus on Energy's Renewable Energy Competitive Incentive Program, which is meant to encourage municipalities, schools, farms and companies to install renewable energy systems.
When the system is complete, by the summer of 2015, the biogas will be used in two ways. It will heat the plant's sewage digesters, which would otherwise need to be heated by natural gas, saving about $41,000 per year. It also will be burned to produce about 2 million kilowatt hours of electricity per year, saving about $164,000 annually. For perspective, the plant used about 7 million kilowatt hours last year.