to design, build and install a fully automated control system using solutions from Rockwell Automation Inc., the Milwaukee-based supplier.

According to Matt Dugan, the plant engineering manager on the project, IGRS was looking for an automated system that would help collect the gases on the landfill—which is located under a golf course—for odor control, as well as to generate electricity in a sustainable way. Today, the IGRS facility produces approximately 5,000 kilowatts of power per hour, enough to power an average of 5,000 homes in the Mississauga area.

Global automation giant ABB is also stepping forward. Many customers are using the company’s automation products to embrace alternative, sustainable energy sources. For example, St1 Biofuels Oy, in Finland, is relying on ABB solutions to help make biofuel—specifically bioethanol—from food waste at several fully automated plants.

The biofuel is 85 parts ethanol blended with 15 parts gasoline components and additives, and is sold in Finland as Refuel (or RE85) as an alternative vehicle fuel. Drivers must have a vehicle engineered to use it, a so-called “flex-fuel” vehicle—but RE85 costs about 42 cents U.S. less per liter than regular 95 octane unleaded gasoline. 

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