Services

Waste processing

PERC employees successfully process thousands of tons of waste each year, brought to us by municipalities and commercial waste haulers. Those plastic bags and containers you see at the end of driveways every week – chances are that many of them end up at PERC. Same for the dumpsters you find behind businesses and apartment buildings.

After trucks are checked in and weighed, their waste is deposited on the tipping floor of our massive indoor processing facility. Non-processable materials, such as propane tanks and barbecue grills, are pulled from the waste, which is then ground into fuel for our steam-generating boilers.

In 2017, we purchased the Terminator, a KOMPTECH 6000s slow-speed grinder. The Terminator has allowed us to access much more diverse waste sources for fuel, such as carpet, oversized bulky waste (OBW), and certain construction material that previously went direct to landfill. It also helps us properly size waste for our boilers and recover more metals.

The Terminator has been such a success that we have subsequently purchased two more.

Power generation

PERC uses the processed waste material to feed our two Riley boilers, which create the steam to power our GE turbine. Since going online in 1988, PERC has generated more than 5,000,000 Megawatt Hours of renewable electricity.

With the end of our 30-year Power Purchase Agreement with Emera Maine (formally Bangor Hydro Electric) in early 2018, PERC has become a merchant power producer, selling its electricity through shorter term, cost-competitive contracts in the New England wholesale market.

PERC is one of more than 350 generation facilities in New England that supply the energy needed to maintain a reliable and cost effective supply of electricity to residential, commercial and industrial facilities in Maine and beyond.  We also are one of 15 waste to energy facilities – including two others in Maine – that currently operate in New England, providing a safe, environmentally sound means of generating power and dramatically reducing the amount of waste that ends up in landfills.

Economic growth

Looking to the future, PERC is promoting partnerships with companies in wood products and other industries that use large amounts of process heat, electricity, and steam. By taking advantage of lower electricity costs and our staff and facilities — not to mention bulk cargo transportation by rail, barge and truck — we can dramatically reduce capital investment requirements and give companies a major cost-advantage by co-locating at our plant in Orrington.