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Food for Thought: Skyline Electric Co. helped make Utah’s only anaerobic food waste digester a reality

By Susan Bloom | May 15, 2023
Shutterstock / Aneta Waberska/ stock.adobe.com / freshidea
Wasatch Resource Recovery is Utah’s first and only anaerobic digester dedicated to food waste diversion. The team from West Valley City, Utah-based electrical contracting firm Skyline Electric Co. played an instrumental role in bringing this groundbreaking facility to fruition.

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Nestled in the scenic mountains of North Salt Lake, Utah, and completed in 2020 following a three-year construction process, Wasatch Resource Recovery is Utah’s first and only anaerobic digester dedicated to food waste diversion. Through a unique process that converts food scraps, liquid waste and manufacturing food waste into biogas and bio-based fertilizer, the facility turns organic matter into sustainable resources that help serve the community. The team from West Valley City, Utah-based electrical contracting firm Skyline Electric Co. played an instrumental role in bringing this groundbreaking facility to fruition.

Founded in 1959, “our firm is licensed in Utah, Nevada, Colorado, California, Wyoming and Idaho, but the majority of our work is along the Wasatch Front in Utah,” said Rhett Butler, president and co-owner of the 63-year-old company, which employs 230 team members and specializes in industrial work with a focus on water and wastewater treatment facilities. 

“There’s currently a great deal of activity within the wastewater treatment industry,” he said, “because there are a lot of regulations and requirements that are mandated by the EPA and a number of facilities don’t meet them, so many are upgrading, retrofitting and/or building new plants.”

“The Wasatch Front is growing very fast and there are a lot of opportunities in the wastewater arena in this area,” he said. “It’s a unique segment that requires a specialized skill set and understanding, and we’ve been working in that market and with the South Davis Sewer District for many years.”

A cutting-edge concept

“Wasatch Resource Recovery is a cutting­-edge new facility that recycles food waste into biogas, which is then sent back to the grid and utility partner Dominion Energy; after the energy is processed and cleaned, it’s put into the natural gas pipeline for use in people’s homes,” said Tony Shaw, Skyline Electric project executive. “While some other similar plants use cow waste to generate power, the act of recycling food waste and converting it to energy is very unique in the U.S. and this plant is among the first of its kind in America.”

“The food waste that’s digested and turned into biogas includes everything from fruits and vegetables to dairy products, meat, bones, fats, liquids, raw food, prepared food, by-products from breweries and much more—essentially any food waste that would be disposed of in a landfill—and comes from restaurants and manufacturing facilities located throughout the Wasatch Front,” Shaw said. 

“There’s a fee to legally dispose of this waste in landfills anyway, so these organizations just pay Wasatch Resource Recovery to take it—fees which Wasatch Resource Recovery says are considerably less than those at the average landfill along the Wasatch Front—and then become part of a larger cycle of benefits,” he said.

Situated on a 20-acre property that houses numerous buildings, including the sister South Davis Sewer District located just to the south, Shaw explained that after food waste is received at Wasatch Resource Recovery, it gets ‘depackaged’—a process by which specialized machines separate food from plastics and liquids from glass or plastic bottles. 

“Hydrolysis and anaerobic tanks then break down the food and other materials that come down the pipeline—essentially the same process that’s undertaken at a sewer treatment facility, but with food,” Shaw said. “After water is pressed out of the food waste, natural gas, ammonia and other chemicals are released and must all be separated so that the gas diverted for use is clean; remaining by-products are then used in the production of fertilizer.”

Skyline Electric co.

Shaw noted the multistage operation involves many scientific processes and specialized pieces of equipment. 

“For example, the food digester must be continuously heated to keep the microbes alive that break down waste, so the complex includes an entire building dedicated to heating the fluid in the digester so that it will maintain a constant temperature and keep digesting food waste efficiently,” he said. 

A monumental undertaking

Kicked off in 2017, “we were brought into this project by Salt Lake City-based general contractor Alder Construction, with whom we’ve had a very positive relationship for 30–40 years,” Shaw said. “They performed the full scope of the work (including the concrete, mechanical work, erection of all steel, excavation, etc.) and our team at Skyline Electric did all of the electrical design and installation.”

“We worked with basic room designs from the electrical engineers on the job, but we knew what had to be accomplished and we designed all of the electrical layout and then supplied and installed the equipment for every room,” Shaw said. “We sized every conduit and cable, designed all of the cable trays, installed water waste trenches under all of the equipment, sourced and supplied all of the motor control centers, gear, and other equipment, and commissioned all of it after installation.”

Representing a roughly $6 million portion of an overall $80 million to $90 million project, “we used Schneider Electric for all of our control centers, Square D for our panel boards and instrumentation from such manufacturers as Siemens, Endress+Hauser and Rosemount/Emerson,” Shaw said. “On the labor side, we had a dozen electricians on-site at the height of the project, but typically about six day-to-day.”

Skyline Electric completed all electrical designs, estimates, sizing, layouts and installation for the Wasatch Resource Recovery complex in North Salt Lake, Utah.

Skyline Electric co.

While that may seem like a small number for a project of such great magnitude, Butler is quick to note that Skyline Electric has a unique approach to such jobs. 

“While these projects may seem large and daunting on the surface,” he said, “it comes down to preplanning the project out, having experienced leaders like Tony and foreman Nick Harrison at the helm and well-trained crew members in the field, and being efficient and productive. With those foundations, we’re able to allocate the exact amount of labor we need to get these projects done.”

Although the project was completed on time and on budget, it wasn’t without challenges.

In addition to issues with inclement weather, “the site of this project is very close to the wetlands just east of the Great Salt Lake, so the water table is really high in this area and requires us to ensure that we’re de-watering the facility and drying things out,” Butler said, who also likened their conditions to ‘digging in a bog.’ 

“There were a few instances where we had to redesign and reinstall things like undersized pumps as well as change out some medium-voltage motors and compressors to low-voltage versions due to interference issues with the grid,” he said. “You can’t always know these things until you see them in operation and then you have to make changes on the fly.”

“These types of projects are difficult, and not everyone can build them,” Shaw agreed. “It was a design-build-assist effort that involved extensive calculations, layouts, build-outs and coordination between trades that isn’t necessarily typical in the construction of a standard industrial facility.”

A win-win

Running smoothly since 2020, the food digester is a win-win for all the stakeholders.

In addition to being a cost-effective way for restaurants and food manufacturers to dispose of waste they would have otherwise had to pay to send to a landfill, “Wasatch Resource Recovery’s food digester supplies enough gas to power 15,000 homes and support 40,000 people,” said Elias Bishop, Skyline’s business development manager. “Along with delivering this renewable gas back to the grid, part of the company’s capture from the process is carbon that’s used to make nutritious, carbon-rich fertilizer, which is sold to help grow crops.”

“The intent of this facility is to make waste 100% recyclable, and it’s great to think that we can turn this back around and complete the circle for something good,” Butler said. “This facility is being evaluated as a pilot plant to see how it does and determine if it can be a feasible model elsewhere throughout the U.S. and the world.”

For Shaw, the lessons learned from this project ran deep.

Skyline Electric’s Ryan Joslin oversees concrete being placed on the incoming duct bank during upgrades at the Wasatch Resource Recovery Plant.
Skyline Electric Co.

Preparing the detailed and up-front designs, estimates, sizing and layouts typically overseen from the start by electrical engineers, “I learned that there’s nothing too complicated that Skyline can’t accomplish as a team,” Shaw said. 

“This project embodied our approach to the market and the strong relationships we forge with our customers, general contractors and their customers and end-users. We tackle every project with four core values—safety, integrity, teamwork and excellence,” Butler said. “On the safety side, we’re known in the industry for our impeccable safety record and are approaching 4 million man-hours without any lost-time accidents at our company since 2002. As for integrity, you have to establish a level of trust in the industry, and our general contractors know that we’ll deliver a quality end product at a reasonable price and not take advantage of them.”

Regarding teamwork, “Skyline’s crews have collaborated successfully with our various general contractors and we all work well together,” Butler said. “The cherry on top is being able to design and install these projects with excellence. As IBEW-trained electricians, our commitment to quality craftsmanship has helped us accomplish our vision and mission to become the preferred electrical contractor. We feel confident that when we approach projects in our region with these values, we’ll be successful, and our customers and their end-users will achieve their goals as well.”

Bishop said he’s proud to see Skyline at the forefront of the energy and electrical frontier, and noted how exciting it is to be involved in a cutting-edge, efficient project that turns waste into usable products.

Among Bishop’s biggest takeaways from the experience, “It’s important that customers and general contractors work with true electrical partners who are able to bring value engineering and expertise to the table and deliver the best product possible,” he said. “Wasatch Resource Recovery’s plant is pushing the electrical frontier of what’s possible, and Skyline Electric is also always redefining what’s possible, so it’s rewarding to be part of that movement.”

“It feels great to know that we played a role in bringing this new, leading-edge technology and process to fruition and to see such a great finished product,” Shaw said. “I drive past it on occasion and love to show it to my kids and tell them what it does and how we helped make it happen. It’s meaningful to be doing something to not only keep waste out of our landfills, but to reuse, recycle and help keep waste to a minimum in our country.”

Header image: Shutterstock / Aneta Waberska/ stock.adobe.com / freshidea

About The Author

BLOOM is a 25-year veteran of the lighting and electrical products industry. Reach her at [email protected].

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