Irvine Water Recycling Plant to Install Microturbines

March 10, 2015
The microturbines will convert biogas into heat & power for the plant

Capstone Turbine Corp. received an order to upgrade the Irvine Ranch Water District's Michelson Water Recycling Plant in Irvine, Calif., with five C200 microturbines.

Regatta Solutions Inc., Capstone's distributor in California, secured the order, which is expected to be commissioned in early 2016. Once commissioned, the microturbines will operate on the biogas, or "green waste," produced on-site from municipal solid waste.

Capstone microturbines will be installed in a grid connect configuration to provide electricity to the recycling plant in parallel with the local utility. The site will include a biogas conditioning skid to compress the plant's biogas for use in the microturbine engines. The microturbines are deployed in a combined heat and power configuration. The exhaust from the microturbines will be captured using heat exchangers to provide hot water for process heating the plant, thus reducing the need for natural gas and providing the highest system efficiency possible.

The Irvine Ranch Water District serves Central Orange County under the provisions of the State of California Water Code. The district provides drinking water, wastewater collection and treatment, recycled water programs, and urban runoff treatment.

The Irvine Ranch Water District chose Capstone microturbines over reciprocating engines for their ability to meet local building and air emissions requirements as well as their proven field experience and service support. Capstone microturbines also meet SCAQMD BACT emissions levels that allow for a streamlined air emissions permitting process.

"Capstone microturbines offer redundancy and the ability to be sequenced to load follow automatically based on gas availability and the electrical loads at the site," said Jim Crouse, executive vice president of sales and marketing at Capstone Turbine. "With Capstone microturbines, businesses are able to reduce operational expenditures while simultaneously helping their local community."

Source: Capstone Turbine Corp.

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