FuelCell Energy Inc. announced Tuesday that it has upgraded its 1 megawatt Direct Fuel Cell (DFC) power plant at Sierra Nevada Brewing Co. to use fuel created from a waste byproduct of the brewing process.
The brewery’s fuel cell power plant had been running on natural gas. Now, in an effort to increase efficiency and be more environmentally friendly, it runs on the brewery by-product methane.
A compressor and a filtration system, installed at the Sierra Nevada plant, purifies methane gas from the brewery’s water treatment process and then uses it for fuel in the power plant.
A 20 to 40 percent reduction in fuel costs for the plant is possible by the 250 to 400 kilowatts of electricity that it can produce via biogas.
“Because fuel cells generate energy by chemical conversion rather than combustion, they can convert virtually any biomass — or hydrocarbon-power source — into ultra clean electricity. Sierra Nevada is reducing its energy costs and eliminating a manufacturing by-product that would otherwise add to its disposal and waste water expenditures,” said Bruce Ludemann, senior vice president of sales and marketing, FuelCell Energy.