most requested services

Latest News Departments Tax Info Apply For... Covid-19 Info

stay connected

Facebook

Contact Us

800-596-3200 Citizen Request

Energy Recovery Facility

The ERF is a 200 ton per day (TPD), waste to energy (WTE) conversion facility. Originally commissioned in 1985, the ERF to date has converted over one million tons of municipal solid waste to usable energy. The most important contribution the ERF makes to the solid waste system is the preservation of landfill space. This is a result of the volume reduction from the combustion of the solid waste. The ash remaining after the burn process takes up less than ten percent of the space of solid waste.

The steam produced by the facility is sold to Lydall, Inc. (formerly Interface Solutions) adjacent to the ERF. The steam is also used to generate electricity with the facility’s steam turbine generators. The electricity produced is first used to power the facility. This greatly reduces the electric cost to run the facility. If more electricity is produced than what is needed in the facility, then this electricity is sold to National Grid.

The ERF was retrofitted in 1998-1999 in order to meet the requirements of the revised Clean Air Act of 1996. The facility consists of two process trains. Each train includes two 50-TPD incinerators, one heat recovery steam generator (boiler), a flue gas scrubber, a bag house and an exhaust flue (stack). The exhaust flues from the two process trains are combined in one stack.

The flue gas scrubber and the bag house combine as the air pollution control equipment that cleans up the incineration flue gas before it is released to the atmosphere. In the scrubber, the gasses are combined with a reagent. The reagent reacts with the acids and other pollutants in the gas to form particles, which are then filtered out in the bag house. Stack testing performed after the retrofit determined that the emissions of the regulated pollutants would meet the requirements of newly built plants, which are much stricter than the requirements for existing facilities.

Yearly, the ERF processes approximately 60,000 tons of waste and generates over 400 million pounds of steam. The facility operates 24 hours per day, seven days per week, 365 days per year. Only permitted haulers with swipe cards can use the facility.

-->