In a little more than a year, an egg farm north of Gettysburg expects to generate electricity from its birds’ manure.
Hillandale Farms is partnering with EnergyWorks BioPower, a subsidiary of EnergyWorks North America, on the facility next to its farm in Adams County. The plant, which will be the first of its kind in the United States, will produce electricity and turn chicken manure into fertilizer. It will work by taking the manure and using a process called gasification to produce gas that will power boilers, which will in turn power turbines to make electricity.
“In other words, we cook it instead of burning it,” says Mike McCaskey, VP of business development at EnergyWorks BioPower.
The process will also generate ash from the chicken manure, which will be sold as fertilizer. The heat will kill pathogens in the ash. It will also remove about 99 percent of the nitrogen and 96 percent of phosphorus in the manure. That matters because nitrogen and phosphorus are detrimental to water quality, and water runoff from south-central Pennsylvania eventually ends up in the Chesapeake Bay.
The Hillandale farm has 3.5 million chickens now and plans to have 5 million by the end of next year. Each day that many birds produce 240 tons of manure. That amount can make enough electricity to power 3,500 homes, which can be sold back to the grid.
Construction of the plant is set to start in late November and the facility should be running by the end of 2011. EnergyWorks is seeking $25 million in government and private loans for the $30 million project.
The company hopes to build eight of these facilities over the next five years.
Source: Mike McCaskey, EnergyWorks BioPower
Writer: Rebecca VanderMeulen