Posted by Thierry Page on Tue, Jul 19, 2011 @ 08:41 PM
The composting and anaerobic digestion facility of Hera Vekst, one of the largest in Norway, processes over 25,000 tons of sludge and organic waste. It is located near the town of Elverum, 140 km north of Oslo (Norway).
Since its start-up, residents complain of odors generated by the facility’s activities. In order to better manage odor emissions, Hera Vekst’s site managers decided to install OdoScan, a continuous odor monitoring system.
The sludge treatment and organic waste process used on the site consists of two stages. First, the waste received is placed in enclosed digesters, where it is degraded under anaerobic conditions. The methane created is recycled to produce green electricity. The mixture then enters the composting phase. The gases produced during the composting phase are processed with an acidic chemical scrubber and two biofilters before being released into the atmosphere.
The continuous real-time odor dispersion modeling system known as OdoScan was installed in January of 2009. This tool, consisting of a weather station on site and an atmospheric dispersion modeling software designed specifically for odors, allows for the monitoring of the olfactory impact of the site activities on the environment in real time.
In addition to implementing OdoScan, they launched a campaign to call on all the site’s neighbors to help create a citizens’ committee (The Nose Panel). The objective was to link any events related to odors that are identified by local residents to the information provided by the OdoScan system with the purpose of identifying a pattern in the operating and weather conditions that create these odors.
Since the implementation of the system, Hera Vekst’s managers were able to reduce the complaints related to odors by more than 50%. This was achieved by integrating the odor management system with the site’s daily operations.
This project was carried out following collaborative work initiated by Axelera with Green Business Norway. Odotech, a member of Axelera since 2007, was able to engage in commercial activities in Norway by using this network.