SEEGEN Municipal Solid Waste Project

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The GVRD-owned SEEGEN project is giving new meaning to the phrase "one man's trash is another man's treasure", through harnessing the energy derived from the lower mainland's municipal solid waste. SEEGEN is one of three projects that responded and signed electricity purchase agreements with BC Hydro as part of the 2003 Customer-Based generation call for clean or green energy. Considered as "clean energy", the cogeneration plant, built by Montenay Inc., reached its commercial operation date on July 19, 2003. It is now providing 125 gigawatt hours per year to BC Hydro's grid and, to achieve this, a new steam turbine and generator were installed to assure full recovery of all steam produced at the plant. "SEEGEN was designed as a safe and environmentally sound waste disposal facility," said Montenay's Ron Richter. "Strict environmental testing and continuous emission monitoring show that it meets all regulatory standards and has no measurable impact on the air, soil or vegetation in the area."

This plant has three processing lines, each burning 10 tonnes of garbage an hour and producing about three tonnes of steam for every tonne of garbage. Trucks haul garbage collected from curbside and municipal transfer stations to the plant. After being weighed on a computerized scale, they tip their loads into the refuse bunker, where two overhead cranes mix the garbage and lift it into the feed chute.

Garbage moves down the feed chute to the combustion grate where it burns at temperatures of more than 1000 degree Celsius. The heat and gases from the burning process pass into the boiler area, where they heat tubes filled with water. The water becomes steam in the process that cools the gases. These gases are then sent to the air pollution control system. Gases are treated to remove acids, metals and dust.