Alternative Energy - Anaerobic Digestion

There's no fear of the dark at this farm in eastern Ontario. That's thanks to power generated through the production and processing of methane gas.. and there's a steady supply.

We knew how much energy is in manure from past experience. We tried a bit in Switzerland to make heat out of methane gas. We didn't heat up, the manure, but we had some gas coming up without heating it and we read in certain papers that there is about 1 1/2 to 2 1/2 kilowatt-hours per cow per day in a well-fed dairy cows. So our consumer day is about 450 kW-hours with our animals, about 250 animals, large animals, times two would be about 400 kW-hours. So we figured that we would be able to produce our power if the system would run well.

Paul and Fritz Klaesi arrived in Canada in 1990 armed with a desire to be dairy farmers - and to apply their technical knowledge to explore green energy. The Klaesi Brothers milk 140 head of cows and have 280 head of livestock. 6 thousand cubic meters a year of manure is produced.

Fritz Klaesi, Dairy Farmer/Innovator, Forrester's Falls

The manure comes out from the cow, goes into the gutter. We run the gutter twice a day morning and night. It runs about half an hour to three-quarters of an hour. The manure goes all around behind the cows and comes up her - this incline. It goes down in the three-inch pipe. It's no pump; it's gravity fed and runs into the digester.

Ingrid Clark

The manure is stored for 28 days in the digester. Helpful bacteria, naturally present, get the process going until the manure is well fermented. Energy not utilized by the cattle is released in the form of methane gas. Contents of the digester are agitated often so no crust forms trapping the gas, and to make sure that solids don't settle. Heat is essential to this whole process, especially given cool Canadian winters. The manure has to be kept at around 40°C to have perfect fermentation.
The Klaesi's have capitalized on all sources to capture that much needed warmth.

Fritz Klaesi

So what we did here on this farm we tried to build a heat exchanger, where we can exchange the warm manure that goes out from the digester with the cold manure comes in from the barn. So we would like to have some of that heat that goes out in the end of storage, captured in the fresh manure so she's preheated. But we also do we use from the milk cooling. We make hot water from the milk that we cool down; we have to cool the milk down from 36° down to about 2 to 3°.

Ingrid Clark

The fermentation process produces methane, nutrient-rich manure and ammonia. Manure is comprised of between 40 and 60% methane compared to natural gas which has a methane content of closer to 90%.

Fritz Klaesi

A rubberized tarp on top of that works storage for our gas. So this bubble is like a balloon goes up and down to have the storage room for about hundred 50 cubic litres of gas - if it's full or empty.

Ingrid Clark

A full dome represents 250 kWh of power, which occurs twice a day. Every day. Manure is considered to be liquid gold by farmers and that's doubly true for the Klaesi brothers. As this dome drops, energy is directed to the Hydro One power grid forcing their electricity bill down.

Paul Klaesi

The valve has opened here and here now we lose the methane gas. We really should start up the generator.

Ingrid Clark

The generator is a story in itself. And Paul Klaesi loves to tell it.

Paul Klaesi

Here the methane gas comes into the generator. Here we measure the volume of the gas with a meter. And then we go in up here to the turbo charger where the gas gets mixed with air; goes through the after-cooler of the turbo-charger; and comes in here into the diesel engine. The motor has the potential of producing about 300,000 BTUs of heat. We have here the heat coming out of the engine, going in an exchanger, and going here over to the distribution system. The same time, we reclaim the heat of the muffler, up here.

Ingrid Clark

This powerful system and some good negotiation has resulted in a net-metering agreement with Hydro One for the Klaesi's. They feed the province's power grid when the generator runs and the farm's not using the energy produced - and here's something you don't see often: a hydro metre running backwards!

Fritz Klaesi

A lot of people asked and wanted to see it. We had to hold them off because we are in a different climate here in Canada and want to see it also it working in the winter. It's a big question for us to because like I said insulation, did it really work, what we did? We think it does. But we are really excited about it.

Ingrid Clark

Paul Klaesi sees many plusses to the process.

Paul Klaesi

One advantage is usage of the power. Another advantage which we really is during the summer we can make the hot water in the houses and we think largely we can probably heat the houses with the energy which comes, with the heat which comes out the generator. The generator produces when it runs on full, full output 300,000 BTUs. And a big part it all is the digestion of the manure. We really like to see the manure is much more available to the plants And the bacterias which E. coli and so on are gone in the manure.

Ingrid Clark

The sustained heat also kills weed seeds a big advantage for any farmer - reducing requirement for spraying. The Klaeses have 500 acres primarily in hay and corn - producing all feed for their animals except some minerals so it's value added to value.

Paul Klaesi

We are a bit pioneers, I would say. We imported a lot of the stuff from Europe and we put the system together here ourselves because we have some technical knowledge.

Ingrid Clark

Paul has been able to put his experience as an Inspector for Hydro Zurich to good use, combined with Fritz's good dairy farmer background. As they pour over hydro bills from before and after the system's installation, they have reason to smile.

Paul Klaesi

It looks good, but we have also other considerations and we spent a lot of money on the system. And I think, that is something which almost has to be dealt with. If it wouldn't have calculated that it wouldn't even started. We knew that the system will work. We're not exactly sure whether we can come to the level of zero but I think we can come very close to it.

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