Toyota Motor Manufacturing Kentucky makes Camry, Camry Hybrid, Avalon, Avalon Hybrid, Venza and four-cylinder and V6 engines and other engine components. Annual capacity is 500,000 vehicles and 600,000 engines.
Toyota’s Georgetown, Kentucky manufacturing plant begins generating electricity from methane, a byproduct of garbage decomposition at the nearby Central Kentucky Landfill next week. Capturing and burning the methane is said by the EPA to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Toyota will generate one million watts per hour at the site, enough annual energy generation to produce about 10,000 vehicles. The system can eventually be expanded to 10 megawatts per hour.
“The landfill gas generator represents the kind of thinking that our company is asking us to do to reduce our carbon footprint over the next 35 years,” said Kevin Butt, Toyota’s general manager for environment strategies. “It’s a small step, but a significant one. These types of changes to our manufacturing operations coupled with other global initiatives will help us reach this very aggressive goal.”
The project is a collaboration between Toyota’s Georgetown manufacturing plant and the Central Kentucky Landfill owned and operated by Waste Services of the Bluegrass. Landfills are required to monitor methane levels and report these levels to the EPA.
Toyota Georgetown’s project began in 2010 when the two companies met to discuss the potential. Last fall, Waste Services began installing a methane collection system and Toyota began installing the generator at the landfill site. An underground electric line runs from the landfill approximately 6.5 miles to deliver the electricity to the plant.
