Stop & Shop using inedibles to generate DC power
Supermarket News, April 19, 2016. Image credit: dawnfu
Stop & Shop Supermarket Co. said it is converting inedible food into energy to help power its distribution center in Freetown, Mass., at a new green energy facility.
The company said the 12,000-square-foot facility, which opened on April 15 is expected to process an average of 95 tons of food per day, or 34,000 tons per year, to produce gas that fuels a generator that creates electricity.
The energy produced by the facility will provide up to 40% of the energy needs of the 1.1-million-square-foot Freetown distribution center — enough power to operate the facility for four months out of the year, the company noted.
Once it is fully operational, Stop & Shop said the facility will create approximately 1.25 megawatts of clean electricity.
Stop & Shop said the green energy facility houses an anaerobic digester, which turns organic material into sustainable power. Inedible food from the chain’s 212 New England stores that cannot be sold or donated to regional food banks or local farms will be transported to the facility, where, by recreating the naturally occurring process of anaerobic digeston, carbon in the organic materials will be converted into a bio-gas and used as a power source — all within a contained, oxygen-free area that does not produce any odors.