We are excited to announce that the first piece of our biogas plant has arrived!

On Wednesday, May 9th, our Combined Heat and Power (CHP) unit, the engine that will generate electricity from zoo poo and food waste, was delivered to the ZooShare site across from the Toronto Zoo.

The unit arrived in two shipping containers from Europe.

ZooShare’s Executive Director, Daniel Bida, was there in-person to meet the delivery.  “It was an exciting moment.  The CHP is an essential piece of our project, and as the first piece of equipment to arrive, it is the first step towards construction,” he said.

ZooShare’s Executive Director, Daniel Bida, was there to meet the delivery of the engine that will turn poo into power.

So, how does this engine work?  Combined heat and power (CHP), also known as cogeneration, is the simultaneous production of electrical power and heat.  First, biogas powers the engine, then the engine runs an alternator (an electrical generator) which creates renewable power for the Ontario grid.  The rotation of the alternator also produces heat–and unlike conventional technologies that waste it by letting it float off into the atmosphere–the efficient CHP unit will capture that heat and use it to warm the ZooShare tanks and buildings on site.

The Combined Heat and Power (CHP) unit.

The next steps are to connect the CHP unit to the Ontario grid, and then construct the tanks and buildings that make up the rest of the biogas plant.

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