The Project: Utilize anaerobic digestion technology to generate methane-fueled electricity from manure from a commercial poultry farm. Currently under construction, scheduled to begin operation in the Spring 2007.

The Principals: BLT Farms is a large poultry operation with four enterprises: eggs, pullets, broiler chickens and turkeys. Mr. Len Jewitt is President of BLT Farms.

Generating Facility: A two-phase project, the first phase will include a 250 kW generator and a 1,200 square metre tank to store the necessary fuel.

Information Source: Information was supplied by Mr. Chris Litschko, President and CEO, Bracebridge Generation Ltd.

Project Background

Len Jewitt's first encounter with anaerobic digestion came during a visit to Nepal, India in 1977. “It was a very low-tech operation involving a latrine, a concrete cylinder and a drum that collected methane gas from fecal matter that was burned to heat the building – but it worked,” he says.

More recently, he met Martin Lensink of St. Catharines-based CEM Engineering at a meeting of turkey producers and they began planning an anaerobic digestion operation for BLT Farms using poultry waste.

BLT Farms has 115,000 hens producing 3 million dozen eggs a year, a pullet division raising 240,000 pullets per year, a broiler chicken operation and a turkey operation that sell the chickens and turkeys live to a local processor of poultry products.

The operation produces 6,000 tonnes of poultry manure a year.

“There was an opportunity to use modern anaerobic digestion technology to generate electricity for the farming operation, reducing hydro and propane costs and improving profitability, and to sell excess power to the utility,” Jewitt says.

“The Standard Offer program with its simplified rules and stable pricing makes the project more economically-viable for an operation like ours.”

Technical Issues

Chicken manure must be watered down due to nitrates that hinder fermentation, Jewitt says.  “To solve this problem, we decided to grow a crop of corn to provide corn silage (chopped-up corn stalks) that is mixed with the manure and air sealed.”

“The benefits of anaerobic digestion are that the end product is a richer fertilizer that is 99 per cent pathogen free, and there is a 90 per cent reduction in odour. Capturing methane gas is also better for the environment as methane is a greenhouse gas.”

In terms of approvals, Jewitt found Wellington County and Mapleton Township very supportive, and Ontario environmental farm plans for the project were added on to those for the farm operation as a whole.

The local distribution company for the project is Hydro One. Jewitt reports that they took many precautions due to the new technology involved.

Business Plan and Financing

“A business plan was submitted for bank approvals and additional financing, which were helped because the bank was familiar with the BLT Farms business,” Jewitt says.

The project is mostly debt financed, with total costs projected to be in the $1 million plus range, with installed costs of about $4,800 per kW. Jewitt believes that costs may be lower for future developers as engineers and contractors become more familiar with the technologies.

The project received a grant from CanAdapt towards engineering costs as an innovative project, along with a $10,000 grant from another source.

Including the on-peak premium, the simple payback is projected to be approximately five years.

Construction

“In December 2005 we constructed a manure storage shed,” Jewitt reports. “Then concrete was poured for a corn sillage bunker and 80 acres of corn were grown last Spring. The bunker silos were completed in August and we started to fill the silos in September. Construction is currently in progress for the anaerobic digester tank to be installed by Spring 2007, and the necessary peripherals, such as the transformer and generator set will be added at that time.”

“The next step will be connection to the distribution grid, which can only be done with prior approvals from Hydro One. Currently, there is a three to six-month timeline for Hydro One to process these approvals,” says Jewitt. 

Lessons Learned

“The project rests on saving costs for the farm operation, primarily displacing electricity and propane costs,” Jewitt says. “We are also getting creative in using all available resources and heat to further reduce operating costs.”

As a trail blazer in anaerobic digestion in Ontario, he would like to see the rules clearer for similar projects, and believes the Standard Offer Program will make it easier for future developers.