Biomont Landfill Plant (CAN)

Background

Two renewable energy pioneers—Eolectric from Canada and Valeco from France—teamed up on a challenging project aimed at turning recovered methane and other pollutant gases from a landfill into useful renewable energy. The collaboration, supported by third-party minority partner Fondaction, resulted in the Biomont Énergie SEC plant at the Saint-Michel Environmental Complex on the island of Montréal. Given its unique proximity to a residential area, this 40-meter-deep urban landfill posed some serious challenges to the success of the project. To prevent the migration of landfill gas into neighboring homes, the gas extraction and collection system managed by the City of Montréal needed to be carefully integrated with the landfill gas-to-energy plant. Since its inauguration in September 2017, the Biomont plant has been converting the biogas generated from the anaerobic decomposition of organic matter into valuable renewable electricity and thermal energy.

Solution

Constructed within a 12-month period, the Biomont biogas cogeneration plant is centered on three advanced technology Jenbacher J612 engines from INNIO, each with a capacity of 1.6 MW of electrical output. Enerflex—INNIO’s authorized Jenbacher distributor in Canada—delivered the complete facility, including all engineering, procurement, and construction under a complete turnkey contract.

Results

As part of its clean energy strategy, one of the major Canadian utility companies buys the green electricity produced by the 4.8 MW Biomont plant under a 25-year power purchase agreement, providing enough electricity to power the equivalent of about 2,000 homes. At the same time, thermal energy recovered from exhaust gases and the engines’ cooling circuits is used to provide 5.2 MW of heat to surrounding buildings including the TOHU circus stadium and the headquarters of Cirque du Soleil. By turning biogas into electricity and heat, this project converted what used to be a source of pollution that needed to be destroyed into a valuable renewable source of electricity and heat keeping the lights on in the St-Michel neighborhood of Montréal and allowing the creative minds of Cirque du soleil to develop new shows in a warm and comfortable environment.

Customer benefits

• With more than 25 years of experience in the combustion of landfill gas, Jenbacher engines provide stable power output with waste gas as an energy source.
• INNIO’s Jenbacher J612 engines operating on captured landfill gas yield up to 43% electrical efficiency and 85% total cogeneration efficiency.
• The complete gas-to-wire solution from our official distributor Enerflex significantly decreases project risk, accelerates project schedule, and facilitates project financing.
• Converting landfill biogas to energy and heat significantly cuts greenhouse gas emissions.