Oregon Department of Energy Celebrates Biogas Facility Groundbreaking with City of Salem

ODOE Director Janine Benner was proud to join the City of Salem today to celebrate the groundbreaking for an upgraded 650-kilowatt cogeneration facility at the Willow Lake Wastewater Treatment Plant.

The cogeneration plant produces heat and power from biogas, which is a byproduct of the plant’s wastewater treatment process — but the system is older and no longer large enough to process the amount of biogas the plant produces.

ODOE is supporting the City of Salem’s system upgrade with a $250,000 Renewable Energy Development Grant. Projects like this support a more sustainable energy future for Oregon. “If the state is going to meet our greenhouse gas reduction and clean energy goals,” Janine shared at the groundbreaking, “we’ll need all of us working together, and municipalities like Salem stepping up to show how it’s done.”