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11/13/2015 Slow,stinky start to Le Sueur,Minn.,green-energy project-StarTribune.com Dahlen said the plant isn't yet generating at 5 cents per kilowatt hour as he has projected,but is meeting financial goals,which he declined to share.At the projected price,the plant's electricity would be cheaper than solar,and close to the price of wind power. The multiyear ramp-up doesn't worry Steve Schmidt,an Anoka City Council member and chairman of the MMPA board of directors,who pointed to a 2014"Top Plant" honor awarded by a power industry trade journal for the innovative approach to biogas. "We are kind of inventing along the way,"Schmidt said. Not the first biogas challenge More than 2,000 biogas plants operate in the United States,mostly at landfills,which naturally produce methane from the breakdown of waste.Many small plants operate on farms,turning manure into energy. Dan Andersen,an assistant professor and extension specialist in the Iowa State University Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering Department,said designers of biogas projects often are"very optimistic"about how much methane a digester will produce.He said he has visited plants,though not Le Sueur's,that get only 50 to 70 percent of the expected output. "They found that there are some struggles in the day-to-day operation,"Andersen said. "For the most part the systems are still in operation.They are making energy,maybe it is a little less than they were hoping for,but they are plugging along." Most reach 50 percent of their operating capacity in a few months,he added.Yet not all have been a success.According to the U.S.Department of Agriculture,54 farm-based projects have been shut down,including nine in Wisconsin.A manure-based plant in Dane County,Wis.,that leaked liquid waste and emitted stinky hydrogen sulfide paid an $80,000 state penalty in July,court records show. Andersen said a plant like Hometown BioEnergy faces more complex challenges because of its larger size and mixture of wastes.The plant's financial model relies partly on collecting"tipping fees"for wastes that might otherwise go to landfills.The plant also aims to profit from the sale of byproducts of the digestion process,including nutrients that can be applied to farm fields. But the waste and nutrient markets can be tough,Andersen said.One problem,he said, is that waste materials often contain water."It costs a lot of money to move water around,"he added.Ramping up a mixed-waste biogas plant"is as much an economic management decision as it is something about the technology,"he said. Although the Hometown BioEnergy plant is large compared with other biogas plants— 8 million watts of output—it's a small part of MMPA's generating capacity,which includes large natural gas-fired units.In 2014,the biogas plant produced just 03 percent of the electricity MMPA supplied to the 12 cities that own the power agency. One of the goals of the project is to meet the state mandate for utilities to get 25 percent of their electricity from renewable sources by 2025. MMPA also has a wind farm and scattered wind turbines and is considering solar power to meet the requirement. If the biogas plant can't achieve its operating goals,"you have put out a lot of capital to run the plant a few hours,"said Doug Tiffany,an assistant extension professor in the University of Minnesota Department of Applied Economics. If only it didn't stink Neighbors of the plant would be happy if it didn't stink. Kena Sheets,who lives and works near the biogas plant,said that driving past it during one of the intermittent stinky times is"like walking through a sewer." Last spring,when odors were particularly bad,Terwedo,the closest neighbor,said her daughter"literally threw up on the back steps"as she walked from the house into the foul air. 157 http:/hvww.startribune.com/slow-stinky-start-to-le-sueur-mina-green-energy-project/333334521/ 2/3