MONTREAL, QC — TransForce Inc., a transportation company, partnered up with Terreau Biogaz Inc., a waste management company, to convert methane from two Québec landfill sites to electricity.

The electricity generated from this project was put on the Hydro-Québec grid on June 29. The project will sell electricity to Hydro Québec for 24 years.

The $10 million dollar project is expected to produce one megawatt of power in its first year. That’s enough electricity to power approximately 450 homes. The number of megawatts produced will double in the second year, and at its peak the facility will produce three megawatts.

Marc Couture, Terreau Biogaz’s general manager, said there are other benefits to the project besides generating electricity.

“In addition to generating electricity, the project will reduce greenhouse gas production at the Granby site and will contribute to the Québec government’s 2012-2020 climate change goal of lowering greenhouse gas emissions by 20 percent versus the base year of 1990,” he said.

How? Alain Bédard, TransForce’s president, explained that they are not just collecting methane from the Sainte-Cécile-de-Milton and Granby sites. He said TransForce also put a gas collection system in place at the Granby site, which will feed the generators.

“We estimate this will reduce the release of greenhouse gases from the old landfill by about 30,000 tonnes of CO2 per year,” Bédard said.

TransForce started a similar project at its Moose Creek landfill in Eastern Ontario. Construction on the Ontario facility is underway and is expected to be selling power into the grid by October. This facility is expected to generate an annual seven megawatts of power at its peak.