CleanBay Biofuels and Renewables is aiming to build several facilities throughout the Delmarva Peninsula converting poultry litter into energy. CleanBay, which already has its first facility under development in Princess Anne, will use anaerobic digestion to convert poultry litter into clean, renewable energy, and recover nutrients to create a commercial fertilizer. CleanBay has a relationship with Ireland-based Globomass, which has facilities in the United States, Serbia, and Southeast Asia.
CleanBay has said it will aim to build as many as 10 facilities on Delmarva, each one managing 75,000 tons of poultry litter a year and generating up to 5 megawatts of power.
Bob Rauch, a local engineer and developer working with CleanBay Biofuels and Renewables to design and build the sites for CleanBay, said at a Caroline County commissioners’ meeting on Tuesday this week that he is seeking permission to continue working with the Caroline Economic Development Corporation to look for a feasible site for the next facility in Caroline County.
Each facility would be fully enclosed, Rauch told the commissioners, as a certain moisture level has to be maintained within the litter in order to pull off the methane gas that powers the facility’s generators. Being fully enclosed also protects the air quality surrounding the facility, he said. Rauch also said that the anaerobic digestion process would prevent nutrient runoff from reaching the Chesapeake Bay
Another process will recover nutrients from the liquified litter — namely phosphorous and nitrogen — and convert them into fertilizer, Rauch said. The water will then go back into 1.5-million gallon bladders for reuse, which will be topped off as needed to replace water lost to evaporation. The facilities’ financial viability comes from both the production of power, which can either be sold on the grid or, ideally, directly to a large customer, and the sale of the fertilizer, Rauch said.
