The Tennessee Advanced Energy Business Council is a membership-driven organization. As a value to our members, we highlight their efforts and impact on the state’s advanced energy economy. Today, we highlight TAEBC Member Michael Varner, Market Sector Leader – Power at Merrick & Company.
Why are you a part of TAEBC?
Our membership with TAEBC provides a way to connect with other organizations and individuals interested in developing advanced energy technology and solutions within the Tennessee Valley and worldwide.
What value does TAEBC provide to your organization?
Merrick & Company values the diversity of individuals involved with the Tennessee Advanced Energy Business Council because it provides an opportunity to interact, learn from, and collaborate with other organizations, institutions, and people in the advanced energy sector.
A Recent Win:
Merrick just completed a renewable natural gas (RNG) project in Iowa that takes dairy manure and converts it to natural gas. Merrick provided engineering, project management, and project integration services for the project, which included three separate dairy farm sites and one common biogas upgrading site. Merrick and our customers in the Tennessee valley are looking for similar opportunities to convert biowaste into renewable energy.
A traditional dairy RNG project with multiple sites performs the entire manure-to-RNG process at each site—from manure collection to anaerobic digestion to biogas upgrading. To save time, money, and land, our team streamlined this process for the NW Iowa RNG Plant. We successfully blended agricultural and industrial best practices to create a unique solution for the three dairy sites. Each site was designed with its own manure collection and processing, anaerobic digestion, and biogas conditioning systems. The resulting biogas from each site is then transported via a pipeline network to a single common gas upgrading site where upgrading to RNG quality occurs for direct injection into a utility pipeline.
Project achievements included:
■ Reducing the methane released into the air from manure traditionally placed in open-air lagoons
■ Blending agricultural and industrial standards to select equipment and processes that satisfy industrial standard requirements while maintaining the integrity of agricultural operations
■ Providing an economic boost to local dairy owners
■ Creating a customized design for each site to minimize disruption to existing operations and provide tailored solutions for individual site challenges
■ Minimizing land use through a single common gas upgrading site
■ Creating a cost-effective, scalable, and practical template for future multi-site agricultural RNG projects.
Read more: https://www.merrick.com/project/nw-iowa-rng-site-design/