LIPA Trustees Approve Food waste-to-power Plant

Trustees of the Long Island, N.Y., Power Authority (LIPA) just approved an $84 million, 20-year contract to buy power from a facility planned in Yaphank by American Organic Energy. The facility promises to convert 180,000 tons of food waste a year to biogas to fuel a power plant, vehicles and other equipment.

According to a Newsday report, approval came as LIPA’s chief executive pointed to a new calculation of a sharp decline in peak-power needs over the next 20 years and a particularly steep drop in the next 10 years.

Newsday has more information:

LIPA trustees gave a thumbs-up Wednesday to a food scraps-to-energy plant, even as the authority released new projections for sharply lower peak-power needs on Long Island that could hasten the obsolescence of older fossil-fuel plants.

Trustees unanimously approved an $84 million, 20-year contract to buy power from a facility planned in Yaphank by American Organic Energy, which promises to convert 180,000 tons of food scraps annually to bio-gas to fuel a 6-megawatt power plant, vehicles and equipment. Once in operation by December 2020, the plant will cost average residential ratepayers around 10 cents a month, LIPA said.

The state has already awarded the facility more than $1.7 million in grants, and Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, in a statement Wednesday, called the facility “groundbreaking.”

Read the full article here.