Sustainable Partners selects Veolia to boost performance at AD facility

French resource management company Veolia has signed a five-year contract with Lowell Energy AD for the operations and maintenance of its Lowell Energy Anaerobic Digester.

Under the contract, Veolia is charged with improving performance of the anaerobic digestion (AD) system to increase biogas and power output. 

Commissioned in 2015, the Lowell Energy biogas-to-electricity facility has sought to maximise its 800KW power output capacity.

The Lowell Energy facility is a $6.6 million (€5.9m) privately funded plant that uses food waste and cow manure in an anaerobic digester to create methane that powers a combined heat and power engine.

The electricity generated is sold to the local municipal utility, Lowell Light and Power.

"We have seen consistent improvement in the plant's performance since Veolia began operating in February this year. Veolia's experience in waste-to-energy was just what the plant needed," said Greg Northrup, principal at Sustainable Partners (SPART) that manages Lowell Energy. 

SPART selected Veolia to operate and maintain the Lowell Energy facility with the primary goal of increasing system performance.

The partnership is currently engaged in feasibility studies for a number of distributive energy projects – both biogas-fired and natural gas-fired – in the food processing, medical, and manufacturing sectors.