True North Renewable Energy, Weitz, And DRANCO Announce Partnership For Anaerobic Digestion/Advanced Composting Facilities
True North Renewable Energy, LLC (TNRE) announced a partnership with The Weitz Company (Weitz) and DRANCO Inc. (DRANCO) as the engineering, procurement, and construction technology supplier for their organic waste to renewable energy development projects in the western United States. Weitz-DRANCO has agreed to assist TNRE on an established basis to provide the necessary technology expertise required for TNRE’s anaerobic digestion/advanced composting facilities.
TNRE develops, owns, and operates organics-to-renewable energy facilities, including large-scale, regional high-solids anaerobic digestion (AD) infrastructure. These facilities reuse and repurpose organic resources diverted from landfills to create beneficial, sustainable products, including biomethane and soil-amending compost.
Weitz is a full-service construction company, general contractor, design builder, and construction manager with office locations throughout the United States. DRANCO (formerly OWS) is a company in the business of construction and operation of anaerobic digestion plants for solid waste organics and in organic waste management consultancy.
TNRE is currently developing three facilities in Imperial County and Kern County, California, and Yuma County, Arizona. Each facility will be capable of processing up to 600,000 tons (544,311 tonnes) per year of organic material, producing up to 1,000,000 MMBtu/y of renewable natural gas (RNG) and reducing pollutants by 160,000 MT of CO2e/y (35,000 passenger vehicles per year equivalent). Each of these facilities requires an investment of more than US$250 million and will make a significant contribution toward providing the infrastructure needed for California to meet its climate goals. TNRE is already well advanced in the permitting process of these sites and expects the first plant to be under construction by the end of this year and fully operational by the beginning of 2025.
“It is my pleasure to announce this partnership between TNRE and Weitz-DRANCO,” said Gary Aguinaga, president of TNRE. “TNRE’s goal is to provide state-of-the-art, large-scale, regional organics processing facilities and we must utilize partners like Weitz-DRANCO to help deliver these projects.”
“The partnership between TNRE and Weitz-DRANCO will allow jurisdictions throughout California to take advantage of advanced organics recycling capabilities,” said Luc De Baere, president of DRANCO. “The patented DRANCO technology has been utilized in 35 full-scale reference plants in 14 different countries, with a combined capacity of more than one million tons per year, with two more under construction. Weitz has worked on 90+ projects throughout California over the past 30 years. Weitz’ experienced resume combined with DRANCO’s design will ensure TNRE accelerates proven digestion technology throughout the state.”
Given the urgency of climate change and the need to quickly reduce short lived climate pollutant (SLCP) emissions, project developers like TNRE are ready to provide the infrastructure needed to meet California’s organics diversion targets and climate goals. TRNE believes that developing a solution that handles commingled organic streams, with high levels of food and green material from both residential and commercial sources, will require standalone facilities that integrate anaerobic digestion and advanced composting.
