Landfill Gas Provides University with 80-85% of Its Energy

Through a landmark partnership, Waste Management, Inc. (WM) will supply the University of New Hampshire (UNH) with enough landfill gas to enable UNH to receive 80 to 85 percent of their energy from this renewable source. A 12.7-mile pipeline to transport recovered methane gas from a landfill in Rochester, N.H., to the UNH campus in Durham.

Called the 'EcoLine,' this landfill gas project will send renewable, carbon-neutral landfill gas from Waste Management's landfill in Rochester directly to the Durham, NH, campus. At Waste Management’s Turnkey Recycling and Environmental Enterprise (TREE) facility in Rochester, the company has a gas collection system consisting of more than 300 extraction wells, miles of collection pipes, and compressors to capture the landfill gas. R.H. White, an 84-year-old construction company based in Auburn, Mass., is installing the gas transmission pipeline in a 4-foot-deep trench running along Rochester roads, the Spaulding Turnpike and the Pan Am Railway’s right-of-way and onto UNH property.

University officials believe substituting landfill gas for natural gas at the institution’s co-generation plant, the primary source of heat and electricity for the 5-million-square-foot Durham campus will stabilize fluctuating energy costs that have doubled in the last five years and grown at an annual rate of nearly 19 percent. Additionally, EcoLine is expected to exert major impact on UNH’s carbon dioxide emissions, reducing its greenhouse gas emissions an estimated 67 percent below 2005 levels and 57 percent below 1990 levels.

''By reducing the university's dependence on fossil fuels and reducing our greenhouse gas emissions, EcoLine is an environmentally and fiscally responsible initiative,'' said UNH President Mark Huddleston. ''UNH is proud to lead the nation and our peer institutions in this landmark step toward sustainability.''

Waste Management has more than 100 gas-to-energy projects underway at 100 of its 281 landfills, and expects to create an additional 60 renewable energy facilities. Taken together, these projects will generate more than 700 megawatts of renewable energy, enough to power 700,000 homes or replace over 8 million barrels of oil.

“Waste Management is very pleased to work with UNH on this significant and innovative landfill gas-to-energy initiative,” said Alan L. Davis, district manager of TREE for Waste Management. “This project will add to the growing roster of landfill gas-to-energy projects operated by Waste Management across the country, and it will help us responsibly allocate the company’s resources while providing renewable power to the communities we serve.”

Learn more about UNH's use of landfill gas: WM and UNH.

Read about more companies using energy from landfills.