Rob Nielsen, Standard-Examiner

OGDEN — What started as a pilot project at a disused Weber County landfill a year ago is morphing into a major opportunity for more and more communities to tackle a serious greenhouse gas.

“Over the past year, the County and Qnergy have taken an ambitious step forward in reducing their emissions fingerprint by abating methane emitted from a closed landfill near the Weber County Archery Park,” a press release announcing the conference said. “This program has advanced from a pilot project to a full-fledged Methane Destruction System that is currently abating more than 95% of methane emissions from the closed landfill. The methane harvested will be utilized for carbon credits that will fund the project and generate revenue for the County, and in turn, help protect the environment from a potent greenhouse gas.”

The former landfill was closed in the early ’90s. The Methane Destruction System — which accompanies the PowerGen generator that was placed at the site nearly a year ago — produces 5 kilowatts of power to power a system that pulls the gases out of the landfill and into a flare that largely destroys them.

“In May 2024, the Methane Destruction System was installed and unveiled at the closed landfill utilizing Qnergy’s PowerGen series generator to power an enclosed flare system,” the release continues. “Significant results continue to be realized at the original landfill site and more projects that will lead to strong economic development and benefits for the community are coming soon.”

Qnergy Chief Technology Officer Isaac Garaway said it was important to prove the technology over the past year before starting to deploy it on a greater scale.

Rob Nielsen, Standard-Examiner

“Qnergy as a company likes to deploy real technology — technology that actually works and we demonstrate that it actually works,” he said. “Crawl before you walk, walk before you run, prove it, make sure that it works well for you before trying to preach to others. Being able to work with our own local community demonstrating our technology, verifying that it actually works just as we expected to, making sure it all comes together in a beneficial way, not only for us and our production facility here in Weber County, but also for our partner, who is Weber County.”

He said there’s a major difference between what Qnergy is doing and other methane-to-power solutions.

“There are a lot of technologies out there today that are able to take higher levels of methane concentration from relatively newer landfills and convert them to electricity,” he said. “It’s a very known industry. Every state in the country has systems like this. What we bring to the table … is old, closed legacy landfills where the gas is no longer valuable to anybody and can’t really be used for anything anymore due to the low concentration, the low pressure values.”

Qnergy CEO Ory Zik said Weber County was the natural place to start testing the technology.

“We’ve been working together for a few years and I think we’ve established a good and trusting relationship,” he said. “We became like one team.”

Weber County Commissioner Jim Harvey said there is a huge benefit to the community in this partnership.

“It helps the air we breathe, it helps reduce the methane, and we are so happy to be able to, with Qnergy, to be able to do this,” he said. “They’re a phenomenal company and a great partnership.”

He said partnering with Qnergy was a no-brainer.

“They’re a proven global leader,” he said. “It took a county that had an old asset that wasn’t producing much partnering with a global leader in this technology now that benefits not just the environment, but benefits the community financially. It’s been a really, really good partnership.”

Todd Ferrario, Weber County Culture, Parks and Recreation assistant director, said the carbon credits from the project will eventually benefit the county as a whole.

“This gives us an opportunity to partner and move forward in some of the sustainable energy pieces that we’re looking at,” he said. “As time goes by and we capture these credits, they get turned into carbon credits, those will help sustain the project and pay for the project. Long-term, those funds will start trickling back into parks and rec.”

Weber County Economic Development Director Stephanie Russell noted that there is work being done to build another methane harvesting system at the county’s landfill near the Inland Port site.