| January 25, 2001
News Release With no end to soaring energy costs in sight, King County is expecting big energy and environmental dividends from a fuel cell demonstration project that will turn methane gas from sewage into power to run the South Wastewater Treatment Plant. King County and FuelCell Energy, Inc. Wednesday entered into a cooperative agreement to install a one-megawatt Direct Fuel Cell power plant at the county’s wastewater treatment facility in Renton. The field trial is expected to showcase the technology’s ability to use a renewable fuel source while controlling air emissions. The two-year demonstration project is cost-shared by King County and FuelCell Energy through a cooperative grant to the county from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Operations are expected to begin during the third quarter of 2002. The total value of the contract is nearly $18.8 million. FuelCell Energy, based in Danbury, Conn., was selected for the project through a competitive process last July. "This is cutting edge technology that will help King County turn a waste byproduct into a valuable resource," said King County Executive Ron Sims. "This is an important project as we look to meeting our future power needs in this new era of higher priced electricity. A typical daily power bill at the plant is $7,000, but the recent spike in rates bumped the power bill to as much as $137,000 when costs reached a peak in early December. The county has responded by taking aggressive steps to reduce outside energy use, including the use of three diesel-burning power generators, Sims said. A Direct Fuel Cell power plant could play a key part in reducing the county’s dependency on outside power sources. King County's wastewater treatment system uses an anaerobic or oxygen-free digester process to stabilize solids (organic waste material) and reduce pathogens. The process produces a methane-rich gas that can be used as fuel in the power plant. The process occurs inside a large volume tank, which contains microbacteria. Solids are a food source for the bacteria and the byproduct of digestion is methane gas. A wastewater plant treating 30 million gallons a day generates sufficient digester gas to fuel a one-megawatt fuel cell power plant using carbonate technology. King County's wastewater plants in Renton and West Point treat three to four times that amount. Fuel cell technology may also provide the benefit of cleaner air. "It appears that fuel cells have the potential to improve the efficiency of energy recovery from digester gas, while greatly reducing air emissions -- including greenhouse gases -- from wastewater treatment plants," said Robert K. Bastian, senior environmental scientist for the Environmental Protection Agency Office of Wastewater Management. Executive Sims said the technology will help the county do its part to reduce greenhouse gas and air pollution associated with electricity generation. "We're pleased to play a part in validating digester fuel cell systems because of the environmental benefits of producing power without combustion, thereby reducing air pollutants," he said. Other FuelCell Energy field trials under way or scheduled for 2001 include Direct Fuel Cell power plants at the University of Bielefeld and the Rhone Klinikum Hospital in Germany; the headquarters of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power; a coal mine in Cadiz, Ohio; a system in Japan for Marubeni; and a unit slated for the spring of 2001 at Mercedes-Benz U.S. International in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. "This megawatt-class commercial field trial of the Direct Fuel Cell power plant with King County represents the first advanced wastewater digester project for FuelCell Energy," said Jerry Leitman, president and CEO of FuelCell Energy. "This project will demonstrate the versatility of fuel use with the Direct Fuel Cell, as well as its capability to produce more electricity than other technologies using the same quantity of fuel." Fuel cells are an emerging technology for efficient, clean generation of electrical power. High temperature fuel cells such as the "Direct Fuel Cell" used in this demonstration can achieve efficiencies of up to 60 percent for the conversion of fuel to electricity. In addition, the heat produced by the chemical reaction that occurs in a fuel cell can be captured and used within the treatment plant for digester and space heating. Since a fuel cell is an electrochemical device, the power is produced by chemical reaction instead of combustion (such as in an engine). Fuel cells can operate on a range of fuels, including methane or natural gas, and offer enormous potential for the wastewater treatment industry. Similar to a battery, a fuel cell is composed of a number of individual cells, each consisting of an anode, cathode and electrolyte. Hydrogen, oxygen and carbon dioxide react with the electrolyte to produce electric current. The byproducts of the reaction are heat, carbon dioxide and water. By generating electrical power with the methane King County produces, and exchanging it for the electrical power the county now buys, significant operating cost savings could be realized.
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