BRIDPORT, Vt. (AP) – The owners of a local farm are seeking state permission to set up an onsite, manure-to-energy operation that could be generating electricity by October.

Eugene, Ernest and Earl Audet – owners of the Blue Spruce Farm – filed an application for a certificate of public good last month to embark on the estimated $1 million project.

The system would allow the Audets to sell about $125,000 per year in electricity to the Central Vermont Public Service Corp. and its customers, and save an estimated $50,000 in annual costs for cattle bedding through materials derived from the manure-to-energy process.

“We are hoping, by the end of August, for this (certificate) to be issued,” said Blue Spruce Farm attorney Ebenezer Punderson. “We don’t see any problems with this. No one has popped up to dispute this.”

The project calls for construction of special equipment that will be heated to break down the raw manure produced by the farm’s 1,900-head herd and turn it into liquid and solid components, while capturing methane gas.

The gas will be used to operate a 275-kilowatt generator, with the resulting power sold wholesale to CVPS as part of the company’s renewable pricing program. That program gives consumers the option of paying a premium price for electricity derived from the Blue Spruce operation and similar projects.

The manure-to-energy process will leave solid and liquid byproducts. The solids, according to the farm’s application, will be dried and fluffed for use as bedding.

David Dunn, a CVPS senior energy consultant, said a handful of Vermont farms will be closely monitoring the success of the Blue Spruce Farm. Three Addison County farms are currently considering manure-to-energy projects, he said.

The Public Service Board, the state agency that regulates utilities, is scheduled to hold a pre-hearing conference on the Blue Spruce Farm application sometime this month.

AP-ES-07-09-04 0814EDT