Water scarcity now affects every continent with nearly one-fifth of the world’s population living in areas of physical scarcity and some 500 million more people approaching this situation, according to the United Nation’s Department of Economic and Social Affairs.
In the United States, in the arid Southwest, it is a particular challenge.
The UN cites “natural and human-made phenomenon” as the sources of water shortage, adding that while there is enough freshwater on the planet for seven billion people, “it is distributed unevenly and too much of it is wasted, polluted, and unsustainably managed.”
To that end, a number of entities throughout the US are engaging in water reuse efforts in an attempt to minimize the draw on potable water.
In 2012, GE released the results of a survey revealing that while most Americans hesitate at the concept of “toilet to tap” recycling, more than 80% support the idea of “toilet to turf” water reuse solutions for uses that require significant amounts of nonpotable water, such as agricultural irrigation, power generation, landscaping, industrial processing and manufacturing, toilet flushing, and car washing.
The survey indicated that most Americans see an increase in safe and efficient water reuse as a competitive advantage over other countries and are looking for government leadership and industry involvement to protect water resources and advance water reuse.
Survey respondents viewed large industries, agriculture, utilities and power companies as most responsible for contributing an “extreme amount” or “quite a bit” to water scarcity. Americans also are cognizant of the energy/water nexus, with more than 8 in 10 understanding it takes energy to deliver water, and more than 7 in 10 aware that water is needed to create energy.
Those surveyed expect energy industry leaders to demonstrate water stewardship by using recycled water to produce electricity, which they believe can positively impact cost and efficiency. More than half of the respondents indicated they’d be willing to pay up to 12% more for water to ensure future generations will be less vulnerable.
New technologies are helping to increase water reuse efforts, with many occurring in California, where water conservation is of particular concern. Case in point: following two years of research and development and three years of pilot testing, American Water Chemicals (AWC) has made its first full-scale delivery of AWC A-110 antiscalant to the Ground Water Replenishing System (GWRS) of the Orange County Water District (OCWD) in California, the site of the world’s largest reverse osmosis (RO) plant.
The GWRS puts wastewater through an advanced treatment process in order to treat the water to beyond drinking water standards. It then takes the treated wastewater–that would normally be discharged to the ocean–and mingles it with the local water supply by replenishing a local groundwater aquifer.
AWC provides clients with membrane water treatment services and products such as RO antiscalants, RO cleaning chemicals, and MF/UF (microfiltration/ultrafiltration) cleaning chemicals. The products and services are designed to reduce operating costs, eliminate acid dosing and reduce the frequency of membrane cleanings.
OCWD had experienced numerous silica-scaling incidents, leading to the use of hazardous ammonium bifluoride (ABF) as a membrane cleaner. AWC used OCWD historical feedwater data for a series of research experiments. The findings are a link between phosphate scale and silica formation. These were outlined in a paper presented at the 2011 IDA (International Desalination Association) World Congress in Perth, Australia, an area all too familiar with drought. Further lab experimentation determined that variations in iron coagulant carryover had a direct impact on antiscalant demand.
A comparison of OCWD feed water and operational history confirmed a correlation between surges in ferric ion levels and silica scaling events. The AWC A-110 was developed around OCWD’s complex wastewater feed and designed for control of high phosphate and silica scales in the presence of ferric ion carryover. OCWD began piloting the AWC A-110 in August 2011 and continued testing through different temperatures and at varying pH levels. By early 2014, it was determined that AWC A-110 was effectively inhibiting scale in the pilot at a dosage of 3.5 ppm and an operating pH of 6.9.
OCWD gave AWC the green light to provide antiscalant for the full-scale 70-MGD GWRS. The operation at a higher pH level was expected to potentially result in significant operational savings for the district as a result of reduced acid consumption. The OCWD GWRS is in the process of expanding to 100-MGD production capacity.
Mo Malki, CEO of AWC, says recent R&D work had shown the product to be “extremely effective” for controlling aluminum silicate scales. The company presented its findings to that effect at the 2013 IDA World Congress in Tianjin, China.
Wotj RO being one of the primary treatment processes, GWRS “relies a lot on pre-treatment chemicals to make sure that reverse osmosis process is operating properly and can run without excessive scaling or fouling,” points out Mehul Patel, GWRS program manager. “One of the key things we try to do is add a proprietary antiscalant chemical. We recently switched over to this new American Water Chemicals product.”
Patel says any new chemical used by the GWRS is tested on a pilot scale by using a small-scale RO pilot unit. “We tested it for two years before we decided to bring it into the plant on a full scale, because it showed promise in the pilot test,” says Patel.
Patel says the GWRS previously had an antiscalant product that had worked fine in certain instances, “but it didn’t work long-term as far as inhibiting this special kind of foulant or scale, so we had to resort to using ammonium biflouride, which is kind of dangerous and can cause long-term damage to the equipment if it’s used often.”
Staff checking reverse osmosis vessel connections in the GWR system
During the pilot testing, American Water Chemicals’ AWC A-110 showed promise that it’s better at inhibiting scale from forming, “and that may prevent us from having to use the cleaning chemicals like ammonium biflouride in the future,” notes Patel.
If AWC A-110 is successful, “that can not only get us away from using a harsh chemical, but it can obviously keep our RO process running longer and more efficiently the way we’ve always envisioned it would if we had the right antiscalant product,” adds Patel. “The reverse osmosis will run at lower pressure, which allows us to be more efficient in the amount of water we make and how long we’re online. It will hopefully improve our treatment process, as well, by keeping the reverse osmosis from fouling. That is the big culprit in high-pressure membrane systems: allowing the fouling to get too out of hand to where the process is less efficient.
“It’s a good way to try to recycle or reuse this water that would normally not be used for drinking water augmentation, but it takes a lot of onsite testing and pilot testing, not only of just the equipment itself, but down to the chemicals, to know that this process will work for your particular situation,” he says.
Silicon Valley
The Santa Clara Valley Water District (SCVWD) is a water wholesaler for California’s Santa Clara County, an area also known to many as Silicon Valley, and serves 1.8 million residents and more than 200,000 commuters. Additionally, SCVWD manages both surface and groundwater systems in the county.
The district regularly forecasts future water demands and plans how to conserve available drinking water. Forecasts have predicted shortages of as much as 125,000 acre-feet (AF) by 2030, at which time the population in the county is predicted to increase by 520,000. The use of recycled water for irrigation, industrial, and agricultural uses has become a significant component in the water agency’s strategy to satisfy the county’s water needs as the county’s population grows and water demand rises.
South Bay Water Recycling—administered by the City of San Jose—currently manages the recycled water program, providing disinfected tertiary filtered secondary effluent to more than 700 customers that include golf courses, parks, school property, business parks, agricultural lands, and industrial users (for processes and cooling towers) around the South Bay.
A previous study identified that salinity was a major constituent of concern in the existing recycled water supply, and consistent water quality is critical to industrial users’ operations. It was determined that an advanced recycled water treatment facility (ARWTF) could produce a high-quality effluent which, when blended with the existing recycled water, would reduce the salinity and provide a more consistent recycled water quality.
Another study was performed to assess the feasibility of an ARWTF. The SCVWD conducted the feasibility study in consultation with stakeholder groups and other interested parties. The evaluation approach of the feasibility study combined extensive background research with public and stakeholder meetings prior to and as part of the development and evaluation of potential ARWTF projects.
The primary components of the background research effort included a thorough sampling of the county’s potable water sources and water from wastewater treatment plants, a comprehensive assessment of potential markets for recycled water use, development of a Stakeholder Involvement Plan, and an assessment of the impacts of recycled water use on groundwater and surface water supplies. The study concluded that an ARWTF would produce high-quality water capable of meeting the future water recycling goals.
After conducting background research, the project stakeholders evaluated potential projects with criteria agreed upon by all stakeholder groups. The projects included a demonstration-scale project with a capacity of 1 MGD, and five full-scale projects ranging in size from 10 MGD to 45 MGD. The team reviewed applicable regulations, developed permitting strategies, evaluated life cycle costs, and considered each alternative’s funding opportunities.
The selected alternative was an expandable 8-MGD capacity facility, which is the largest advanced water purification plant in northern California and the first of its kind in the Bay Area. The project was completed in March 2014. The facility was renamed the Silicon Valley Advanced Water Purification Center.
The primary goals of the project were to protect sensitive groundwater by reducing the total dissolved solids (TDS) of the recycled water stream from 750 mg/L (average) to about 500 mg/L 95% of the time, and demonstrate the technology for future potable reuse.
The ARWTF would use secondary effluent from the San Jose/Santa Clara Regional Wastewater Facility (SJ/SC RWF) and provide advanced treatment with MF/UF, RO and ultraviolet light (UV) disinfection to produce high-purity recycled water with a TDS concentration of 50 to 500 mg/L. The ARWTF operations would differ during dry-weather months and wet-weather months. During dry-weather months, the initial demand for recycled water would be high (~13 MGD).
To meet this high demand, product water from the ARWTF would need to be blended with tertiary effluent
Silicon Valley Advanced Water Purification Center
produced from the existing wastewater treatment plant. The targeted blended water TDS is 500 mg/L at all times. It is expected that the blended water TDS would be 400 mg/L for at least 75% of the time. To meet permit requirements, all recycled water produced at the ARWTF during dry months would be treated with MF/UF, RO, and UV disinfection.
During wet-weather months, the initial demand for recycled water would be lower (~3 MGD). At these times, it was expected that the recycled water produced in the new ARWTF would be sufficient to meet the recycled water demand, and blending would not be necessary. During wet-weather months, the MF filtrate would have two treatment paths: first, to pump through RO then disinfect with UV, and second to pump directly through UV without RO treatment.
There were some predicaments in planning the solution. “Working with multiple agencies that may have differing objectives can typically be challenging,” says Jim Clark, senior vice president and project director, Black & Veatch’s water business. The company worked with the municipalities to identify solutions.
“The cities of San Jose and Santa Clara own and operate the SJ/SC RWF, but a total of seven cities and sanitation/sanitary districts discharge to the SJ/SC RWF under a series of master agreements,” says Clark. “The City of San Jose is the administering agency, and the city council is the final decision-making body. The stated core service of the city’s environmental services department is to manage wastewater for suitable discharge into the South San Francisco Bay and for beneficial reuse to protect the environment and public health.”
South Bay Water Recycling is to develop, operate, and maintain a recycled water system that reduces effluent to the Bay and provides a reliable and high-quality alternative water supply. “SCVWD’s mission is to provide the Silicon Valley with safe, clean water for a healthy life, environment, and economy,” says Clark.
While representatives of each of the agencies agree that optimizing water recycling is important and valuable, they also need to consider the needs and financial impacts on their individual constituents, says Clark. “For example, not all of the ratepayers contributing to the SJ/SC RWF would necessarily benefit from the SCVWD ARWTF,” says Clark. “Accordingly, finding an acceptable balance among the various stakeholders required much discussion.”
Water-quality management is a critical component to most recycled water projects. By reducing the discharge of treated wastewater, the pollutant load on the receiving body is also reduced, Clark says.
“Using advanced treatment processes to further remove pollutants and other potentially harmful constituents such as salt from the recycled water improves groundwater quality and opens up additional potential uses for the recycled water, which further reduces the demand on potable water requirements,” he adds.
There is a finite amount of water on earth, and significantly less available fresh water, Clark points out. “We must reuse the water resources multiple times in order to accommodate the world’s increasing population. In most cases, it is less costly to reuse treated wastewater than to find new water supplies. It is also far less costly to provide advanced treatment to wastewater than to desalinate ocean water. It is better for our environment, more sustainable, and the best thing we can do to help preserve this precious resource.”
The project has increased the reliability of a locally controlled, drought-proof, high-quality, recycled water supply for reuse, and has also reduced reliance on more energy-intensive imported water supply options, including from the Sacramento/San Joaquin Delta, says Clark.
Several years ago, the city of Blaine, WA, needed a new wastewater treatment facility to serve its growing population and downtown business district. A parcel of undeveloped land on an ocean peninsula was identified as the best site, but presented a challenge. The site is on a harbor within a popular waterfront park adjacent to a public marina. Community members were not only concerned about the visual and economic impact the facility would have on the high-profile area, but also sought to protect the marine waters’ rich shellfish resources from effluent discharge.The city turned to the GE ZeeWeed System to meet the needs for high-quality reclaimed water to offset
potable water demand through a facility with a small technology footprint, low visual impact, and odor elimination. The closed system is designed to produce high-quality water that can be reused for many beneficial purposes or discharged into the ocean without environmental harm. Much of the treatment technology is installed underground to minimize the impact on the surrounding park.
GE’s ZeeWeed 500 System is an advanced filtration process that produces water meeting the state of Washington’s Class A standards, the cleanest of all reclaimed water classifications: not suitable for drinking, but safe for most other uses. With the ZeeWeed Membrane Bioreactor (MBR) filtration system, wastewater is pulled through hollow-fiber membranes that separate and remove particulates from water to produce high-quality, clean water.
The ZeeWeed Membrane fiber has a nominal pore size of 0.04 um to provide a barrier to biomass, bacteria and viruses, retaining them in the process tank. It is designed to handle extreme variances in feed water, and operate in high Mixed Liquor Suspended Solids concentrations of up to 15,000 mg/L. The MBR system places the membranes directly into the bioreactor tank, significantly reducing the required plant footprint by eliminating the need for secondary clarifiers.
With the ZeeWeed system, Blaine’s Lighthouse Point Water Reclamation Facility can purify as much as 3.1 million gallons of wastewater per day. Reclaimed water is piped and resold at about 80% of the cost of freshwater and used for golf course irrigation, street cleaning, and other purposes.
Visitors to the facility are likely to feel confidence in this process because they can view the water’s clarity as the reclaimed water feeds the facility’s glass waterfall art feature.
Augmenting Creek Water
About 400 miles to the south of Silicon Valley, the South Coast Water District in California turned to a water harvesting and treatment facility designed for multiple benefits to address its water reuse needs.
Engineers from Dudek–an engineering and environmental consulting firm–provided the district with the planning, design, and implementation services for a DOW UF/Toray RO membrane treatment facility to remove the salts from the creek supply and from the tertiary treated wastewater supply from the coastal treatment facility.
“Our engineers designed an economical solution for a membrane treatment facility that would reduce the salts by selectively drawing water from the creek and operating in tandem with the coastal wastewater treatment plant,” notes Bob Ohlund, vice president for infrastructure and water resources for Dudek.
Ohlund explains the process: “It starts with drawing the water out of the creek. That’s a delicate situation to start with because we didn’t want to do a lot of construction in the creek because it would disrupt the habitat and the natural flow of the creek. Intake needed to be such that we could provide screening for the fish plus debris at a rate that would be low enough so we’re not drawing in that much, and then also be sensitive to the issue in the wintertime when we have high winter flows and don’t want to lose our equipment out into the ocean.”
There’s a screen at the base of the intake, which can be removed from the creek in advance of winter storm projections.
Pumps in the creek take the water to holding tanks, where it goes through filters to filter out the larger grit, debris, algae, and other undesired components prior to going through the UF membranes. Biological constituents are removed when it passes through UF. The water then goes through another cartridge filter before going through the RO membranes, where the salt is removed.
“The ultrafiltration is needed ahead of the reverse osmosis to take out that larger stuff, so it doesn’t foul up the finer reverse osmosis membranes,” says Ohlund.
The facility is a collaborative effort between the County of Orange and the City of Laguna Beach. The project taps a new water source, reduces urban runoff, improves water quality, and converts an irrigation system from potable to recycled water.
The Aliso Creek Water Runoff Recovery and Reuse facility is treating water harvested from Aliso Creek as well as tertiary-treated wastewater to lower salts in a recycled water irrigation system. Between 300,000 to 800,000 gallons per day of urban runoff in the creek is being treated based on customer demand and available creek flow.
Its benefits: the project taps into a new source of local water supply, reduces poor-quality urban runoff from reaching nearby Aliso Creek Beach, and increases water conservation by converting irrigation on a local golf course from potable water to improved quality recycled water.
“We are very excited about this new water supply from a local source, and we like the fact that the project will contribute to improving water quality in the area of Aliso Creek Beach,” says SCWD General Manager Betty Burnett. Urban runoff draining to Aliso Creek and ultimately to the ocean at Aliso Creek beach is also intercepted to reduce the amount of poor quality “urban drool” from reaching the South Laguna Beach.
Laguna Beach officials have additional concerns about the quality of water from the creeks entering the ocean related to swimmers’ health, notes Ohlund. “Tourism falls after that,” he points out. “For a number of years, they’ve been pushing really hard in the Aliso Creek Watershed to try to find the source of the contamination. It was determined the large source of pollution is basically urban runoff from lawns and streets.”
The project was funded by $500,000 in Orange County Proposition 50 funds, a pledge from the City of Laguna Beach for $25,000, and $50,000 in funding for construction costs from the County of Orange.
“The district’s Aliso Creek project is an excellent example of how Proposition 50 funding is being applied to benefit the community multiple times over,” says Marilyn Thoms, manager of the watershed management section for the County of Orange, and Program Manager for Proposition 50 funding programs for south Orange County.
Betty Burnett, South Coast Water District (SCWD) general manager, adds, “We are very excited about this new water supply from a local source, and we like the fact that the project will contribute to improving water quality in the area of Aliso Creek Beach.”
The district has been studying alternatives to improve the quality of its recycled water supply that has increased in TDS and salts sometimes up to 1,300 parts per million (ppm), a high level that can occur in coastal wastewater systems. It’s also a level that wreaks havoc on landscapes and especially on golf courses where there are more sensitive greens that don’t like salt, notes Ohlund.
SCWD was one of the first agencies in Orange County to build and operate a recycled water system in the early 1980s for irrigating larger landscaped areas, such as golf courses.
As the percentage of imported water from the Colorado River increased over the years, the local water supply rose in mineral and salt content. These natural salts pass through the wastewater treatment process and make the district’s recycled water higher in salinity than is preferred by local recycled water customers.
District officials had been concerned that they would start losing some customers off of the recycled system, who would return to a potable system because of the damage to the landscaping, says Ohlund. “One golf course had done that some years ago and they were concerned about another golf course that was in the service area that might be pushed to go back to a potable system, which goes contrary to all of the water use efficiency goals,” he adds. But the new treatment facility will reduce the TDS to an average of 800 ppm, much more compatible for landscape irrigation, especially for the more sensitive uses such as golf courses.
The district’s permits to use water from Aliso Creek require monitoring of potential environmental impacts and a sufficient bypass flow rate (4.2 cubic feet per seconds) to ensure protection of fish and plants, and continued flows into the lagoon at the mouth of the creek. That the project encompassed several goals makes it a good example of “what we’re seeing in the industry in general with all types of water converging together,” notes Ohlund.
“You’ve got potable water and wastewater and there really is no water being wasted in wastewater,” he says. “I like to say no matter what the flavor of water is, it’s still water and now because of economic reasons and shortages, we’re looking at how to use any kind of water to its best advantage. One type of water project can impact another type of water issue, and this is where this project was ideal because it was able to take advantage of solving a water quality runoff problem and at the same time solve an irrigated direct reuse issue.”
One of the biggest obstacles, though, was funding, Ohlund says. “It’s an expensive process to put in a filtration system,” he points out. “That was a challenge as the county and the city looked at ways to handle this poor quality urban runoff.”
Funding the construction of a treatment facility to reduce the salts was a particular challenge. “By working on the funding together, instead of building two facilities, they built one facility,” says Ohlund.
Taking creek water and putting it into the recycled water system was a relatively new concept and involved water rights and the county health department. This was another issue that needed to be resolved during the project’s planning and design, he says. The state has requirements about the minimum amount of flow that has to be left in the creek.
“We have to monitor to make sure they’re not sucking the creek dry,” says Ohlund.
The project is designed and constructed to address water issues for many years down the road, Ohlund says.
“It’s a fairly built-out community, so we were able to design it for the ultimate conditions,” he says. “A large part of this is the district is going forward with looking at converting that golf course that went off of recycled water onto potable water and getting them re-hooked up to the recycled water system now that they’ve got the higher quality water.”
Ohlund’s advice to entities considering a similar approach is to consider regulatory requirements ahead of time.
“That’s usually what stalls things,” he says. “You can get excited about designing something and jump right into it, but the permitting and environmental issues you contend with have to be the first part of the design of the project.
“On difficult design and engineering projects, you really want to allow yourself the ability to expand or to accommodate the future,” he adds.
Ohlund notes that more utilities are initiating similar projects. “When you start looking at the biggest way you can reach water use efficiency goals, it is converting potable water uses to recycled water uses,” he says. “Southern California has been one of the leaders in doing that.
“Another step when you’re talking about water reuse is when you have groundwater basins that you can also use as a resource for your potable supply,” he adds. “For reuse, some of the best bang for your buck is to take recycled wastewater, treat it to the appropriate level and recharge it back into the groundwater basin. It’s great to have a dual system and promote the irrigation with recycled water, but if you build one pipeline to one recharge basin and dump a lot of water in the ground, you have an economy of scale that really helps economically.”
Orange County, FL
Many of the plants discussed in this article have been in Orange County, CA. Meanwhile, in Orange County, FL, AquaDisk filters installed in 2003 at the North Plant of the Orange County South Water Reclamation Facility (SWRF) in Orlando have reduced influent TSS (Total Suspended Solids) from 4.6 mg/l to an effluent average of 1.7mg/l before it is conveyed to chlorine contact tanks. Influent TSS from as high as 38 mg/l has been reduced to an effluent of 1.0 mg/l.
SWRF is one of three plants servicing unincorporated Orange County and the cities of Belle Isle and Edgewood. All treated wastewater from the county’s three facilities is reclaimed and used in such applications as irrigating citrus groves and golf courses, creating wetlands for endangered species, recharging the freshwater aquifer and providing cooling water to Orlando Utility Commission’s Stanton Energy Center.
SWRF began its operation in 1957 with a 1.0-MGD trickling filter treatment system, which has since undergone several expansions and upgrades in order to accommodate the community’s growth and increasingly stringent effluent requirements. Upgrades have included the addition of an extended aeration process, sludge processing systems, more aeration tanks, a three-pass modified step feed process and four large clarifiers with return activated sludge systems.
In 2003, three of the plant’s existing traveling bridge sand filter basins, supplied by another manufacturer, were retrofitted using eight 12-disk package steel AquaDisk cloth media filters. The filters provide a 60% increase in average hydraulic capacity on the basis of flow per square foot of filtration area. The cloth media filters precede chlorine contact tanks in the plant’s treatment scheme.
AquaDisk cloth media filters offer the plant additional loading capacity with a smaller footprint. The pile cloth filter media allows higher hydraulic and solids loading rates than conventional granular media, resulting in up to 75% less land requirement. Orange County SWRF operators have found that the filters have handled flows in excess of design while maintaining effluent quality, and have shown to be easier to maintain than the sand filters they replaced.
The AquaDisk filter process works as such: clarified effluent from the activated sludge system enters the filter and flows by gravity through the cloth media of the stationary hollow disks. The filtrate exits through the hollow shaft that supports the individual disks, and flows to the effluent channel and on to the chlorine contact tanks.
As solids accumulate on the media surface, the water level surrounding the disks rises. Once a predetermined level is reached, the disks rotate and the media surface is automatically vacuum-backwashed clean. Heavier solids settle to the bottom of the tank and are then pumped to a digester or to the plant headworks.
The eight AquaDisk filters at Orange County SWRF are currently designed to treat an average daily flow or 29.75 MGD with a peak flow of 59.56 MGD. The filters will accommodate Orange County SWRF’s future design capacity expansion from the current 30.5 MGD to 43.0 MGD.
The filter units reduce TSS to required reuse quality levels of 5 mg/l and prefilter the effluent before it goes through chlorine treatment in order to provide 100% reuse of the plant’s effluent.
Water in Industry: Refrigeration/Cooling
Ted Wampler, Jr. believes there is always room for improvement when it comes to saving water, and that water reuse plays a significant role in conservation.
Many companies such as Wampler’s Farm Sausage Company in Lenoir City, TN, of which Wampler is president, seek to embrace sustainability on an all-en-compassing basis that not only includes energy efficiency, but water efficiency as well.
“Water is going to become more and more a limited resource,” he points out. “A lot of states are showing just how bad it is. Currently, there’s the issue of getting water in restaurants on the West Coast because of the water challenges they’re having there. When we don’t have water to irrigate the crop fields, they turn into dust bowls.
“We’re going to be looking at shortages of food and higher-priced food because of a shortage of water, so everything everybody can do, they need to do it because it comes back to you in so many different ways. It may not be right now, but the rewards are there in the future for conserving water.”
Wampler’s Farm Sausage Company harvests sows and produces a finished product from a liquid chilling process. The manufacturing operation consumes a great deal of water and energy. As such, the company’s “green team” has set a goal toward off-grid, clean energy.
When Wampler’s Farm Sausage Company began examining sustainability efforts in 2009, its plant manager Martin Flanary started with solar power. The company installed a 530-kW system of 168 panels on top of its tallest building at the sausage plant. The company also became the first commercial installation of a Proton Power Inc. (PPI) biomass-to-energy gasification technology, using locally grown switchgrass as a feedstock to produce inexpensive megawatts of power from the hydrogen on-demand system, and supplement it with the solar power the company had previously installed.