Greg Comperta, project manager for the county’s resource-recovery facility, and Dave Harpke, director of the county land-use division, briefed the Will County Finance Committee on operations at the county’s renewable natural gas (RNG) plant and answered members’ questions about downtime, maintenance and costs.

Comperta said production has been uneven but met or exceeded contractual minimums in summer months. “Going back to June, we produced 73,369 MMBTUs… We exceed both of those in June, which is a good month,” he said, and later reported that September production had rebounded to 69,267 MMBTU. Comperta also described several operational disruptions that reduced output in July and August, including a failed feed-compressor motor, valve failures in the nitrogen-removal system, a delivery-point sensor issue with the pipeline operator, ongoing landfill well-field maintenance and storm-related power outages.

The update matters because the plant carries multi-million-dollar debt service and has run a year-to-date operating shortfall. Comperta provided a fiscal summary through Aug. 31 showing total expenses of roughly 8.59 million and total revenue 8.00 million (as reported in the briefing), producing a net loss of $459,484.52 through that date. The county financed the project with roughly $48 million in bonds; officials said the bond term is 12 years and the county has completed about three payments, leaving about nine years of debt service remaining.

Committee members focused questions on reliability and cost mitigation. Members asked whether backup generators or on-site solar would reduce outages and electricity costs. Comperta said a full generator capable of running the plant would be prohibitively expensive: a portable generator solution would require “2 semi trailers” and be costlier to rent than the lost revenue during outages. On solar, staff estimated the plant uses about 32 gigawatt-hours a year and would require a roughly 70–82 acre solar field to meet site demand — with installation costs in the tens of millions: “we're looking at an approximate a 28 to $48,000,000 price tag,” Comperta said. He added that placing solar on active landfill cells is constrained by buried gas lines and by future landfill expansion, and that solar there would be feasible only on final-cover areas that are not expected to be disturbed.

Members pressed for operational improvements. The committee asked whether moisture sensing at the pipeline delivery point could be added after a July incident caused an intermittent delivery rejection. Comperta said the pipeline’s moisture sensor was later identified as the cause and required cleaning; he estimated adding a local moisture sensor would cost roughly $30,000–$40,000 and said county staff were evaluating the expense and process to acquire one.

On maintenance and contracting, Comperta described an O&M (operations and maintenance) contract with an outside operator (SCS Energy) that handles equipment schedules and spare parts; he reported warranty repairs and a reorganized spare-parts warehouse as recent improvements. He also said routine landfill well-field work — relocating or temporarily capping wellheads during active tipping areas — can reduce gas input and lower daily production for days at a time.

Committee members also discussed the plant’s long-term revenue profile. One member noted that when bonds are retired in about nine years, the county would no longer have annual debt service of roughly $4.6 million and that the plant would then generate net revenue for the county, pending continued production and market conditions.

Comperta and Harpke said staff would continue to track production month to month and that September’s production improvement raised the prospect of narrowing the year-to-date operating shortfall if the trend continued. Staff agreed to provide a follow-up on the moisture-sensor analysis and on any recommended capital changes to improve reliability.

The presentation was informational; no formal action or vote on capital changes was taken at the meeting.