CREST HAVEN – The solid, odorous, human-generated material separated from wastewater at the county MUA’s Seven Mile Beach-Middle Treatment Facility may be the source of electricity in a microgrid for all county buildings in the Crest Haven Complex.
With a $175,000 grant from the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities (BPU), announced Sept. 8, the Cape May County Municipal Utilities Authority will conduct a feasibility study for the proposal over the next 12 months. The grant is the only one in Cape May County. The closest other microgrid studies are in Atlantic County, Mroz said.
Before a brief afternoon plant tour, Richard Mroz, BPU president, addressed a gathering of officials that included Freeholder Director Gerald Thornton, Joseph Rizzuto, MUA executive director, George Betts, MUA chairman, and Richard Rixey, MUA vice-chairman.
The incentive grant will allow engineers to compile data to ascertain whether biogas, generated by anaerobic digestion of sewage sludge, could provide sufficient electricity to power 17 facilities in the complex.
Rizzuto said such power would be “consistent with the authority’s vision to pursue and implement innovative, reliable and environmentally sustainable systems.”
Those buildings include the Special Services Schools and Technical Schools, Crest Haven Nursing and Rehabilitation Center, Correctional Center, Administration Building and the Federal Aviation’s Administration navigational beacon, by the Veterans Cemetery, and National Guard Armory.
Mroz noted that about five years prior, the county was impacted by Superstorm Sandy. As he spoke troops from the 253rd Transportation Company of the New Jersey National Guard were traveling to Florida because of Hurricane Irma.
In the wake of such storms, if electric power is out for any length of time, such locally-generated electricity could help county entities to continue to provide public service.
In the event of such a power failure, with biogas-generated energy, sewage could continue to be treated from island communities as well as central Middle Township, the county seat.
The BPU established its Town Center Distributed Energy Resource Microgrid Feasibility Study program to fund 13 applications statewide, of which the local one is a part.
The total funding of the program is just over $2 million.
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