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Project # 15
Prioritizing Organic Waste to Energy-Renewable: Development and Application of the POWER Framework

Team Lead: DOREEN NTIAMOAH - ASARE
Other Team Members: OPEYEMI ADELEGAN, MITHILA CHAKRABORTY, MEHRDAD ARABI, BAHAREH NASIRIAN
Faculty Advisor(s): MELANIE SATTLER (PhD, PE), VICTORIA CHEN (PhD), ARPITA BHATT (PhD), KATE HYUN (PhD)
Department: Civil Engineering
Project Type: Graduate
Title: Prioritizing Organic Waste to Energy-Renewable: Development and Application of the POWER Framework
Abstract: Many regions are currently aiming to divert food waste and other organics from landfills to preserve landfill capacity and increase regional renewable energy opportunities. Many regions already have anaerobic digesters (AD) that convert sewage sludge at water resource recovery facilities (WRRFs) to biogas. Using this existing infrastructure, organic wastes like food, yard, and fats/oils/grease can be co-digested to increase biogas production. The newly-developed “Prioritizing Organic Waste to Energy-Renewable (POWER) Framework” can help cities/regions assess the feasibility of co-digesting organic wastes at existing or new WRRF digesters, on-farm digesters, or stand-alone digesters. The POWER Framework consists of 4 components: a GIS toolbox, a basic POWER tool, an optimization GUI, and a city guidebook. The GIS toolbox estimates quantities of organic wastes that can be collected for digestion and assist in visualizing the spatial distribution of different waste components at different geographic levels. The POWER tool is a user-friendly Excel spreadsheet which estimates fuel produced (electricity, or CNG), costs/benefits, emission reductions, renewable energy credits earned, and net energy balance. The optimization GUI allows the user to determine the overall least-cost system for transporting and digesting waste for conversion to energy, and the optimum region(s) of waste to send to each.
Poster: View Poster #15 (PDF)
Judges Scoring: