While using the toilet is a normal part of everyday life, in Virginia Beach it could soon help generate power for homes. The proposed $30 million project would turn sewage gas into usable energy, giving a wastewater byproduct a second use.
Here’s what to know
According to Virginia Mercury, Hampton Roads Sanitation District is partnering with Virginia Natural Gas on the facility, which would operate at the district’s existing wastewater treatment site. The utility serves about 315,000 homes in the region, and the facility could supply gas for 5,000 households each year. Virginia Natural Gas customers would fund the project.
The treatment plant already produces biogas through anaerobic digestion, a process in which organisms break down biosolids without oxygen. The gas contains methane, carbon dioxide, and other gases, but the facility currently burns it off using a flare.
To enter Virginia Natural Gas pipelines, the biogas would first need to pass through the proposed purification equipment. A 200-foot connecting pipe would carry the gas from the treatment facility’s property to the utility’s existing lines.
More background
For customers funding the project, the immediate effect would be an estimated 36-cent increase in the average monthly residential bill. The State Corporation Commission would receive Virginia Natural Gas’s planned request for approval to recover those costs from customers…