Dairy Farm Buys Technology to Turn Manure into Renewable Energy

RICE LAKE, Wis. - Environmental Power Corporation, a company that focuses the renewable energy industry by providing technology that converts manure into electricity, announced Tuesday that its subsidiary, Microgy Cogeneration Systems, had signed an agreement with Norswiss Dairy of Rice Lake, Wisconsin.

Norswiss will purchase a digester system based on Microgy’s anaerobic digestion technology, which processes the manure produced by their dairy operations. Anaerobic digestion is a method of producing renewable energy generated by methane gas extracted from animal wastes.

Microgy's agreement with Norswiss gives Microgy the right to operate and maintain the digester for the duration of its operational life.

In July 2003, Environmental Power Corporation signed letters of intent with six farms in the Green Bay area of Wis. to build an anaerobic digester system on each site. The systems, which will provide a solution to environmental issues associated with animal waste and provide peak electric power to Wisconsin Public Service Corporation, went into effect in August.

Anaerobic digestion systems help animal feeding operations meet Environmental Protection Agency and U.S. Department of Agriculture pollution standards. These agencies have identified animal feeding operations as the greatest contributors to the problem of excess mineral pollutants in water runoff, the most significant remaining source of water pollution.