The municipal biodigester near Kilsyth is expected to begin producing electricity for the power grid on Friday.
Georgian Bluffs Operations Manager Rick Winters told council on Wednesday night that the hookups have all been completed and the necessary approvals have all been given.
All that remains is to flip a switch once it’s determined that the generator — which is being fueled completely by methane gas produced by the biodigester — is ready for the task at hand — and that’s expected to happen on Friday.
The 3.8 million dollar biodigester is owned by Georgian Bluffs and Chatsworth.
It has been receiving organic material and producing methane gas since early November — but all of the necessary equipment for electricity generation was not installed until earlier this month.
Winters says approval was received last Friday from Hydro One and last Thursday from the Technical Standards and Safety Authority.
On Tuesday of this week, Hydro One completed installation of a metering system at the facility.
Once fully operational, the generator will produce up to 24 hundred kilowatt hours of electricity per day for the grid.
The methane gas comes from pathogens which are being removed from organic material fed into the biodigester.
The material can then be safely returned to the soil.
And the organic material is coming from a number of suppliers which are paying for the privilege.
The tipping fees, along with the electricity revenue, will allow the townships to pay for their shares of the project’s cost — slightly more than one million dollars apiece — within eight years.
The federal and provincial governments are also helping to pay for the biodigester, the first municipally owned facility of its kind in Ontario.
Winters says the timely completion of this project, which was to have been completed by the end of March, allows Georgian Bluffs and Chatsworth to qualify for full funding from the upper levels.
