Photo by Sarah Elmquist
Winona Assistant Superintendent of the Wastewater Treatment Facility Jeff Schneider showed off the city’s new methane digester, netting power from city waste. |
Not many travel to the far eastern portion of Winona and spend much time at the city’s wastewater treatment plant, but behind the quiet scenes there, Winona has transformed its flushing toilet gunk into a source of renewable energy.
The new approximately $1 million methane gas generator has been up and running for several weeks, catching and cleaning gases from Winona’s wastewater, then pushing that through a turbine generator to help draw down natural gas costs. And although the system is still having the kinks worked out, the new system is expected to save up to one-third of the natural gas costs at the plant.
It’s a strange series of pipes and machines, a whirring turbine that sounds much like an airplane engine revving up. The large box computer system running the new building’s worth of machinery even reads “turbine lift off” as the wheels start spinning to the burn of methane below.
Jeff Schneider, assistant superintendent at the plant, said that the entire system is monitored both by his staff and remotely by the company that installed the new system, which can catch an error on the generator from hundreds of miles away.
The generator is part of a larger Winona project to reduce the city’s carbon footprint and make operations more efficient, as part of a local partnership called Sustain Winona. The methane generator project cost has been offset by grants from the Department of Employment and Economic Development and has been coupled with projects like switching traffic signals and parking lot lights to LEDs and installing water conservation equipment in the city’s public bathrooms. The costs for all of the city’s $1.2 million in energy savings projects are guaranteed to be repaid through savings within 15 years, according to McKinstry Company reps -- the firm hired by the city to oversee the projects.
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