BRUNSWICK

Although much of Cold War-era military construction was not built with energy efficiency as a high priority, Brunswick Landing is now running 100 percent green — and they’re looking for more investments from clean energy companies.

An anaerobic digester, operated by Village Green Ventures, is up and running at 60 percent capacity.

The plant produces energy by breaking down organic waste for tenants at Brunswick Landing, including food waste, fats, oils, greases and septic biosolids from wastewater plants.

Bacteria breaks down the organic material, releasing methane which drives the equipment that generates electricity.

It’s the kind of project Midcoast Regional Redevelopment Authority Executive Director Steve Levesque is looking for more of at Brunswick Landing.

“(Village Green) can provide up to one megawatt,” Levesque said. “We use, roughly on the average of about two and a half megawatts of power, so there’s other opportunities for other types of energy developers to come here.”

Levesque said they are keeping an “open platform,” meaning they’re talking to people from solar to biomass and anyone else who wants to talk about clean energy production.

Currently, Levesque said they buy as much energy as they can from Village Green and supplement the rest through contracted wind power. Levesque said the former base has not been leaving a carbon footprint for some time now.

“We’d like to have 100 percent of our power come from on-base — on-property generation,” Levesque said. “As we build up more on-site generation, then we’ll have to buy less from the outside.”

Years ago, the Navy did have a hand in on-site energy production in the form of a large biomass plant. The plant was shuttered when gas was installed, but prior to that, it provided heat to a lot of the buildings on the base.

Bowdoin College currently owns about three acres of solar arrays on former base property for its energy production.

Levesque said another former military base in Maine — the former Loring Air Force Base in Limestone — just approved a massive, 600- acre solar farm. He said another large farm is located in Sanford.

“We’re talking to several solar developers. We have a few hundred acres of land that would be available for solar development. We have all our big buildings you could put solar on,” Levesque said.

Levesque said Brunswick Landing itself was not interested in getting into selling back excess energy, however, if an outside company wanted to move in and provide the balance of energy not being bought from Village Green, they would be more than welcome to seek Public Utilities Commission approval to sell the excess on the market.

It could be an attractive venture, according to Levesque, who said at full development, Brunswick Landing would probably only require about five megawatts. If a company set up there to generate 50 or 60 megawatts, they could attain approval to sell the rest.

Levesque acknowledged the potential to install solar panels on hangar roofs, although a glare study would have to be conducted so as not to interfere with pilots’ visibility.

Even then, as a pilot himself, Levesque knows the lay of buildings versus flight pattern and doesn’t see many hurdles to overcome with glare issues.

“Our goal is to have enough generated here to be self-supporting and net zero,” Levesque said.

dmcintire@timesrecord.com

Carbon footprint

• CURRENTLY, Brunswick Landing buys as much energy as it can from Village Green and supplements the rest through contracted wind power. MRRA’s Steven Levesque said the former base has not been leaving a carbon footprint for some time now.