Veolia begins gas-to-energy project

HILBERT - Veolia’s new gas-to-energy facility at the Hickory Meadows Landfill just outside of Hilbert is a growing trend in renewable energy.

As garbage decomposes, it makes methane gas. Until now that gas had just been burned into the atmosphere.

With converters running, Hickory Meadow is now making use of what used to be waste.

"This is brand new energy that was not being put on to the grid. It's enough to power approximately 2,800 homes -- at 4.8 mega watts,” said Matthew Fallon, Veolia Energy Director of Engineering.

The company says by reducing gas emissions it will also be equivalent to taking about 38,000 cars off of the road.

While it's selling that energy to WPS it will not likely have much of an impact on any individual energy bills.

"Well renewable energy is a little more expensive than conventional energy at this point yet. So maybe it will have an (very minimal) effect on people's bills. But more importantly it just goes to the grid. Its part of our portfolio that we use to be able to supply all of our customers,” said Charlie Severance, WPS Wholesale & Renewable Energy.

While it's Veolia's first renewable energy project in the United States, WPS has been working with similar projects in the area and across the state for several years.

"From dairy farmers in this area, larger dairy farmers, several of them have methane gas generators and electric generators,” said Severance.

WPS providers also include other landfills including Winnebago County. Outagamie County also increased its methane conversion about four years ago.

And here the addition has been felt immediately.

"From an economic development impact, this addition had 20 businesses 20 Wisconsin businesses being impacted and that's obviously a positive move as well,” said Calumet County Administrator Jay Shambeau.

And they're hoping renewable contributions for many years to come.

Veolia would not release the total cost of the project, but says it was in the multi-millions of dollars.

WPS says it also has some projects in the works with Brown County.