San Jose readies to develop 150,000 tons per year waste-to-energy municipal project

In California, the city of San Jose is developing a Memorandum of Understanding regarding guidelines and lease terms for a waste-to-energy biogas facility that would convert 150,000 tons of waste per year to power for the San Jose/Santa Clara Water Pollution Control Plant (Plant) or be sold back into the regional electrical utility power grid.

GreenWaste, a partner with Zanker Road Resource Management in San Jose’s existing Zero Waste Energy Development Company, said it would partner with Harvest Power,, a company backed by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers that provides waste-to-energy project development capability. The first phase would convert 50,000 tons per year, and would utilize anaerobic digestion that converts “the relatively dry organic portion of the municipal solid waste stream which is difficult to recycle without extensive pre-processing and currently ends up in a landfill.”

This proprietary anaerobic digestion system technology has been commercially demonstrated in Europe by BEKON Energy Technologies, which has built 12 facilities in Germany and Italy and has 13 additional facilities scheduled for construction in 2009.

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