Local News in Brief : Simi Valley Gives Preliminary OK to Waste-to-Energy Plant

The Simi Valley City Council has given preliminary approval for the construction of a plant that will generate electrical power and thermal energy from methane and natural gas, giving the city an added source of energy for the next 20 years.

The council, acting as the board of directors for the Simi Valley County Sanitation District, voted unanimously on Monday to approve an agreement with a Colorado firm that will design, construct and operate the power system, which is called co-generation.

A co-generation system makes simultaneous use of heat and power generated by a single source. In this case, the co-generator will use methane from the breakdown of sewage at the Simi Valley Water Quality Control Plant, combined with commercially supplied natural gas, to produce electrical and thermal energy.

Anaerobic Energy Co. will pay $2 million to build the co-generation system on the same site as the water-quality plant, which processes the city’s sewage. The city’s sanitation district will be required to purchase a minimum amount of electrical power and thermal energy from Anaerobic at a discounted rate and will share in the company’s profits from excess energy sold to Southern California Edison.

The energy the city will buy from Anaerobic will be used to meet the requirement that the water-quality plant have a backup source of energy, said Ronald Coons, the city’s Public Works director.

Coons said the City Council is expected to give final approval to the plan in 90 days. Construction of the co-generation plant is expected to take about a year and a half.