During May 9th through May 11th, 2022, the Azura Associates team attended the Value of Biogas East Conference hosted by the Canadian Biogas Association in Toronto, Ontario. The Value of Biogas events are Canada’s premier biogas and renewable natural gas (RNG) conferences which brings together subject matter experts and leaders in the field for insightful discussions and networking. The Azura team were pleased to not only attend in person, but to be a sponsor of the event as well.
On May 9th, James Arambarri and Michael Nelson were able to join the conference tour where they visited the ZooShare Biogas Co-operative and the Markham Technology & Operations Centre. During the visit they got to see Canada’s first zoo-biogas plant which has been receiving manure from the Toronto Zoo and organic wastes collected from around the Toronto area. The material is fed into ZooShare’s anaerobic digester producing renewable electricity, heat, and digestate that can be repurposed as fertilizer. James and Michael also got to visit the Markham Technology & Operations Centre in Markham which is home to North America’s first hydrogen blending initiative. This pilot facility has been successfully blending small amounts of hydrogen into a natural gas distribution network serving 3,600 customers in Markham.
On May 10th, Dave Ellis presented, “Tales of Digester Woe: Failure, Diagnosis, and Recovery of Full-Scale Organic Waste Digesters.” Dave was able to share case studies and Azura’s experiences working with full-scale AD facilities that suffered catastrophic process failures and complete loss of biogas production. Dave described the failures, the testing used to diagnose the issues, the interventions taken to bring about their recovery, and the procedures put in place to help plant staff keep the digesters healthy for the long-term.
Throughout the conference, the Azura team had the opportunity to sit in on several insightful presentations and meet many new industry colleagues. We would like to thank the Canadian Biogas Association for hosting such a wonderful event and we look forward to the next one!
