Steve Gill (Los Angeles Times) |
OXNARD -- A California farming company is using the juice from its onion crops to generate electricity for its processing plant in Oxnard, turning waste into sizable energy savings.
Gills Onions has farms throughout California that send onions to the Oxnard plant, where they are skinned, sliced, packaged and shipped to wholesale retailers like Ralphs.
Machines at the processing plant slice off about 40 percent of each onion, which translates into 150 pounds of waste each day.
For years the onion left-overs were used as fertilizer for the fields or sold as cattle feed, said Steve Gills, who co-owns the company with his brother David.
The brothers recently decided to turn the onion waste into energy instead.
Machines extract about 30,000 gallons of onion juice from the waste, which is then sent to a 145,000-gallon holding tank that contains bacteria purchased from an Anheuser-Busch beer brewery.
The bacteria feed on the carbohydrates in the fermenting juice, producing methane gas. The gas is purified, dehumidified and compressed, then burned in the fuel cells at temperatures in excess of 1,000 degrees.
The 600-kilowatt system produces enough power to operate the plant's refrigeration units and power its lights.
Using the alternative fuel source saves the brothers $700,000 annually on electricity costs and $400,000 a year on disposal costs.
Gills Onions has also secured more than $3 million in government and power company incentives.
The savings and incentives mean the system, which cost $9.5 million in set up, will pay for itself in less than six years.
What's more, it eliminates 30,000 tons of carbon dioxide-equivalent emissions each year.
The company says its next steps will be to revamp packaging and recycle employees' lunch leftovers, turning the packaging plant into a zero-waste facility.
Gills Onions has farms throughout California that send onions to the Oxnard plant, where they are skinned, sliced, packaged and shipped to wholesale retailers like Ralphs.
Machines at the processing plant slice off about 40 percent of each onion, which translates into 150 pounds of waste each day.
For years the onion left-overs were used as fertilizer for the fields or sold as cattle feed, said Steve Gills, who co-owns the company with his brother David.
The brothers recently decided to turn the onion waste into energy instead.
Machines extract about 30,000 gallons of onion juice from the waste, which is then sent to a 145,000-gallon holding tank that contains bacteria purchased from an Anheuser-Busch beer brewery.
The bacteria feed on the carbohydrates in the fermenting juice, producing methane gas. The gas is purified, dehumidified and compressed, then burned in the fuel cells at temperatures in excess of 1,000 degrees.
The 600-kilowatt system produces enough power to operate the plant's refrigeration units and power its lights.
Using the alternative fuel source saves the brothers $700,000 annually on electricity costs and $400,000 a year on disposal costs.
Gills Onions has also secured more than $3 million in government and power company incentives.
The savings and incentives mean the system, which cost $9.5 million in set up, will pay for itself in less than six years.
What's more, it eliminates 30,000 tons of carbon dioxide-equivalent emissions each year.
The company says its next steps will be to revamp packaging and recycle employees' lunch leftovers, turning the packaging plant into a zero-waste facility.
