The New London County Farm Bureau in Connecticut wants to get more anaerobic digesters on farms.
The digesters take waste from cows and food and turn it into electricity and useful by-products that power local communities and help farmers.
Rashi Akki is the CEO and founder of Ag-Grid, the energy company behind the digester project.
“What you see here is sort of like a well-integrated system where cows eat their food, they poop, we take their poop and we take everybody’s waste from within 25, 30 to 40 miles around here,” Akki explained. “The gas side we produce methane and energy, but the liquid side we then apply it onto the lands, because we’re still capturing all that nitrogen, potassium and phosphorus. So, there is no waste coming out of this facility.”
Akki said digesters are better at renewable energy creation than solar or wind because they don’t rely on the weather and they operate 24/7.
According to the Southeastern Connecticut Regional Resources Recovery Authority, the state ships around 850,000 tons of waste out of state each year, 25% of which is food waste.
Kevin Blacker, a member of the Farm Bureau, said anaerobic digesters will help with the state’s growing waste problem.
“The incinerator in Hartford is shut down. Disposing of garbage is becoming very expensive,” Blacker said. “Removing food waste is a way to reduce that cost. That food waste can then be sent to these on-farm anaerobic digesters, where it provides a host of benefits to farms.”
Connecticut’s first digester is based at Fort Hill Farms in Thompson. It produces half a megawatt of electricity daily, enough to power around 500 homes.
