Landfill gas powers homes

GAS MEN: Pioneer chief executive Fraser Jonker speaks with Hastings mayor Lawrence Yule on a tour of the plant.

THE night sky is no longer lit by flaring gas at Omarunui Landfill.
After a decade's planning its methane gas now provides electricity for 1000 homes.
The landfill is jointly owned by the Hastings District and Napier City Councils, managed by Hastings District Council under the governance of the Omarunui Refuse Landfill Joint Committee.
The landfill takes 70,000 tonnes of waste per annum from the two council areas and compacts it.
There is no reusable material, that goes to transfer stations.
Rubbish is compacted, which maximises the landfill's life.
The electricity scheme cost $1.86 million and would provide a steady income for the landfill.
Hastings District Council has taken a 40 per cent stake in the scheme with Pioneer Generation.
"It allows us to show best practice, to reduce methane emissions and greenhouse gases, get a commercial product out at the end and make some money at the same time, which is great," Hastings mayor Lawrence Yule said.
Napier mayor Bill Dalton said the scheme was a good investment but Napier did not take a stake because it already had a good level of investments.
"We think the project stacks up but we are happy for Hastings to take this one because we have plenty of other things on the go."
The gas the landfill produces is about 50 per cent methane with the remainder mainly carbon dioxide.
There are 36 wells throughout the landfill which supply 600cu m of gas per hour.
Tonkin & Taylor team leader waste Simonne Eldridge said the quantity of methane was estimated from council analysis of waste and similar projects in New Zealand and overseas.
"Then you have to look at the age of the waste, because the age will tell you how much more gas it is going to generate and over what period."
She said the oldest part of the landfill was still being tapped but volume had dropped off.
"Where they are getting the best bang for the buck now is in Area D, that's the fresh waste. We are extracting out of the landfill the minute it goes in."
Omarunui uses a second-hand generator that was reconditioned before installation "and there it is today humming away perfectly and generating exactly what you said it would", Mr Yule said.
Harmful gas was now "being used much more efficiently".
He paid tribute to the scheme's engineers.
"It is great to see that engineering precision working."
A second-hand generator is used which has been thoroughly reconditioned and has been operational since October and makes "no knocking sounds", he joked.
"It's been running for a while, hasn't blown up - everything is working."
The flaring tower will remain, to be used during maintenance periods.
Such schemes might put the lines company model "on its head" but were the way of the future "and we're pretty excited to be part of that".
Pioneer Generation was once known as the Otago Central Electric Power Board and is still community-owned. It has hydro stations, wind farms and similar landfill generation projects.
Four years ago Pioneer's turnover was $20 million and this year it was expected to exceed $60 million.
"Two years ago we acquired a Meridian subsidiary called Energy for Industry," Pioneer chief executive Fraser Jonker said.
"It was a brand focusing on waste energy models and this [Omarunui] opportunity came with the purchase.
"We are not a traditional generation company and we thought it sat well with our portfolio of small generation assets."
Pioneer operates the Silverstream landfill gas plant in Wellington, which it used as a template. "It is very similar."
Mr Jonker said the scheme was delivered close to time and budget, "which is quite an achievement".
It was Pioneer's first partnership "and was a big decision for the board".
"It is probably going to shape the company's future quite significantly and how we think about doing these things,
Partnerships made smaller projects more viable, "whereas big players don't want to do that".
"They are not going to be interested in the 1 MW generator."
He said Pioneer was "the biggest of the smallest".
"In our world, especially the electricity part, there are some big players," he said.
"Contact, Mighty River - they are huge players in the market. We do about 1 per cent of the market and the next guy down is about .01 per cent.
"We are sitting in a niche in the middle and that niche is quite important in the current climate."
The company owns 13 hydro stations, wind farms, landfill generation sites "and all of that capacity together is smaller than one of Contact's machines at Clyde Dam".
"So we have to do business better, be more efficient in how we attack problems, how we build and maintain things. That is what we bring to this partnership - to be able to get off the ground and run it efficiently."