Blue Sphere breaks ground on Rhode Island project
Blue Sphere Corp., a clean energy company that develops, manages and owns waste-to-energy projects, has broken ground on its waste-to-energy project in Johnston, Rhode Island in the US.
The plant will produce 3.2MW of clean energy from uneaten food that would normally end up in local landfills. That electricity will then be sold to the national grid to provide power to local homes and businesses.
The project is a joint venture with an affiliate of York Capital Management under the management of Entropy Investment Management.
'This facility is the ultimate landfill because we take waste in the front end and nothing coming out. There's no smell, just electricity and compost,' says CEO Shlomi Palas.
Blue Sphere expects for the facility to be operational by the end of this year.
Orbit Energy, based in North Carolina, co-developed the project. Blue Sphere has made arrangements for the inclusion of two of Orbit's high solid anaerobic digester units to work in parallel with the digesters of Austep S.p.A., the project's EPC contractor, subject to the fulfilment of certain conditions.
DiPrete Engineering, a locally based firm, led the state and local permitting for the Johnston project. This project is the first of its kind for Rhode Island and required collaboration with state and local agencies to navigate through regulatory challenges as quickly and efficiently as possible.
'One of the biggest technical challenges to overcome was obtaining a sewer connection permit for the project,' explains Chris Duhamel, VP of DiPrete Engineering.