Post’s energy partnership cuts pollution, earns award

Redstone will receive a 2024 Air Pollution Control Achievement Award for Emission Reduction, which recognizes facilities that have implemented a project that reduces pollutants.

The award from the City of Huntsville’s Air Pollution Control Board will be presented this fall at a City Hall ceremony.

“We like to acknowledge organizations for going the extra mile” to protect air quality, said Darlene Elliott, the director of natural resources and environmental management for the City of Huntsville.

Since 1990, the Solid Waste Disposal Authority’s waste-to-energy plant has generated steam by burning municipal waste, and the steam is sold to Redstone, to be used mostly for heating buildings along the Martin Road corridor, said Don Henderson, the energy manager with the Garrison’s Directorate of Public Works. The authority waives tipping fees for up to 50 tons of garbage a day from the Arsenal. “We’re their only customer for steam,” Henderson said.

Henderson said that due to the growth in the amount of municipal waste to be incinerated and the conversion of some buildings on the installation from steam to natural gas for efficiency, more steam was generated than Redstone could use.

Henderson said the achievement award recognizes a new Intergovernmental Support Agreement that the Army entered with the authority in May 2024.

“The new contract lowers the minimum amount of steam the Army has to purchase,” he said. “After we reach our minimum required amount to purchase, we continue to purchase steam that will be used to make electricity,” and the additional steam for further power generation is sold to the Army at a 33% discount.

The authority modified the facility’s boilers that produce the steam and installed a 12.4-megawatt steam turbine that allows electricity to be generated and delivered to the Arsenal, according to Henderson. The steam turbine came online this year in mid-May.

“If we get up to the full 12.4 megawatts worth of power – given that our peak demand for an entire year is around 70 to 72 megawatts – that would be around 16 to 17% of our peak power use,” he said.

By burning municipal waste at the facility, which is equipped with scrubbers to capture pollutants, instead of putting it into a landfill, “it produces fewer greenhouse gases. It’s cleaner for the environment,” Henderson said.

“For an estimated 7-megawatt average continuous delivery of power to the Arsenal grid, (the authority’s turbine) would give us 60,000 megawatt-hours of electricity per year (and) it would offset about 120,000 tons of CO2 production and around 4,000 tons of coal combustion.”

Another benefit is “we get a third primary power source of continuous power,” besides two power feeds from the Tennessee Valley Authority, Henderson said.

He said TVA’s calculations indicate the potential for an annual $3.2 million reduction in demand and consumption charges.

“We’re accepting (this award) on the behalf of all of our tenant organizations,” he said. “They all do a great job of being energy stewards” and a number of them, including the FBI, NASA, the Missile Defense Agency and the Missile and Space Intelligence Center, have their own energy reduction programs.

This is the first time that Redstone has received an Air Pollution Achievement Award. The awards program was established by the Air Pollution Control Board in 1997 and enhanced in 1999 to acknowledge the voluntary efforts of industrial, commercial, institutional and educational businesses to improve air quality in Huntsville. Award recipients are considered and selected by the board based on letters of nomination.

There are two other categories of achievement awards: one recognizes facilities that are planning or testing new emission control projects or are in the stages of early implementation and another recognizes facilities that have public outreach and education efforts on how to reduce emissions of air pollutants, including promoting carpooling or conducting workshops and seminars.