Convergen Energy in Green Bay runs around the clock making fuel pellets out of pre-consumer waste, helping meet a growing demand for sustainable energy.
“We are one of many solutions that are out there,” says CEO Ted Hansen. “What we are trying to provide is a baseload, renewable and more sustainable energy solution.”
To do that, Convergen takes industrial waste such as films, label matrix materials, and packaging that includes coatings or plastics that would otherwise be landfilled and turns them into fuel. The materials coming from industrial customers are sorted, mixed, shredded and then heated, forming the pellets.
Materials can be burned cleanly if Convergen starts with the right ones and burns them in boilers designed to thoroughly burn the fuel. Convergen screens the stream of materials and also monitors for chlorine and other contaminants.
Convergen must meet Environmental Protection Agency standards to produce nonwaste fuel from nonhazardous secondary materials.
“We’ve got to be very selective about the types of materials coming in, and then we have to work with our customers who are burning the pellets to make sure we are in compliance with their air permits for burning the pellets,” Hansen says.
The company has conducted a third‑party full life cycle analysis of its process and fuel; it found that other than nuclear energy, it has the lowest carbon footprint for any base load fuel source.
“We’re providing a tremendous competitive advantage for local Wisconsin manufacturers because they have an outlet for their waste and they can go to their customers and demonstrate that they … can show how they are more sustainable,” Hansen says.
Since starting in 2009, Convergen has diverted 750,000 tons of materials from the landfill.
“When we started up, we used to have to beg people to give us the materials,” Hansen says. “Now we have every manufacturer you can think of knocking on our door saying ‘we need a sustainability solution.’”
The business is ripe for expansion, and Hansen says it needs to be part of the solution as energy demand rapidly increases.
“I think there is tremendous ignorance by the general public about how much power is needed to run our economy, and it’s increasing at staggering rates,” Hansen says. “What we have to do is take a very holistic approach and embrace power solutions that can all be utilized together to solve a massive problem that’s heading our way.”
