Investigating the Feasibility of Wind Power at the Sacramento Regional Wastewater Treatment Plant

Background

SRCSD owns and operates the Sacramento Regional Wastewater Treatment Plant (SRWTP), located on 3,400 acres of land between I-5 and Franklin Blvd. in Elk Grove. SRCSD provides vital wastewater treatment services to more than 1.3 million residents in the Sacramento region. The SRWTP receives and treats approximately 150 million gallons per day of wastewater and conducts its operations 24 hours a day, 365 days per year. Learn more about SRCSD.

Safely managing the region's wastewater treatment needs is a highly sophisticated process. The SRWTP's round-the-clock operations involve hundreds of processes, many of which are highly energy consumptive. The result: SRCSD spends about $10 million per year on energy alone.

SRCSD is always seeking energy efficiencies, such as the co-generation facility that uses methane gas to produce electricity.

Seeking Energy Efficiencies

In order to reduce energy costs, SRCSD continually monitors its energy usage, seeks ways to reduce energy use and investigates alternative energy sources. For example, the SRWTP has an on-site cogeneration facility (in partnership with SMUD) which utilizes methane gas (a byproduct of wastewater treatment) to produce electrical energy for SMUD. For the past 16 years, this facility has produced enough energy to power 5,800 homes per year. SRCSD has also investigated solar, algae biofuel, fuel cell and other non-traditional energy sources. Unfortunately, these technologies are not currently financially beneficial for SRCSD to implement on a large scale; however, they will continue to be monitored.

The Possibility of Wind Power

An alternative energy technology that may be both feasible and financially beneficial to SRCSD is wind power. This "green" technology uses wind turbines to harness the power of the wind and convert it to electricity. It can offset some of the energy needed from more traditional energy sources. For SRCSD, a possible scenario would be to have a private wind developer plan, design, construct, operate and maintain a wind turbine project on the SRWTP property, then sell the electricity produced to SRCSD at a lower rate than is currently paid for traditional energy.

"Investigation of Wind Power Fact Sheet"

While there are possible financial benefits as well as environmental benefits of wind power as a clean energy source, there are also issues that need to be fully considered, including:

• Local and regional environmental impacts to birds and other wildlife
• Visual impacts and compatibility with surrounding communities
• Noise
• Consideration of site constraints at the SRWTP property