In Virginia Beach, the simple act of flushing a toilet may soon contribute to the regional power grid. The Hampton Roads Sanitation District is partnering with Virginia Natural Gas on a $30 million project designed to capture biogas—a byproduct of wastewater treatment—and refine it into usable energy. As reported by the Virginia Mercury, the facility will be located at the district’s existing wastewater treatment site, utilizing technology to turn what was once waste into a renewable resource for approximately 5,000 households.
The Mechanics of Turning Sewage Into Gas
The current wastewater treatment process at the site involves anaerobic digestion, where organisms break down biosolids in an oxygen-free environment. This natural process releases a mixture of methane, carbon dioxide, and other gases. Historically, this gas has been treated as a nuisance, burned off by a flare into the atmosphere. The proposed project aims to change that dynamic by installing purification equipment to strip the methane for injection into existing pipelines. A 200-foot connecting pipe will bridge the gap between the treatment facility and the utility’s infrastructure.
“There’s an environmental benefit to this in that we are pretty much eliminating that flared gas,” said Carl Garofalo, a representative for Southern Company Gas, as noted in the Virginia Mercury. The project represents a significant scaling up of existing regional efforts. In 2022, the Western Virginia Water Authority partnered with Roanoke Gas Company to build a similar, smaller facility. That plant, which reached full operation in 2023, currently serves about 500 homes—only one-tenth of the capacity projected for the Virginia Beach site.
Virginia Natural Gas Customers Face Monthly Bill Increases
For the 315,000 homes served by Virginia Natural Gas, the transition comes with a direct financial component. The utility plans to seek approval from the State Corporation Commission to recover the $30 million investment from its customer base. This recovery plan translates to an estimated 36-cent increase on the average monthly residential bill. While this immediate cost is a certainty, the long-term economic outlook provided by the utility remains more speculative.
“We’re monetizing the environmental attributes for the project, and using that to minimize rate impact. We do forecast, in the out years of the project, that we will actually provide a benefit to the customers in the form of possible bill credits,” Garofalo explained.
Whether those credits materialize depends on market conditions for renewable natural gas and the utility’s ability to offset its own gas procurement costs. By monetizing the “environmental attributes” of the biogas, the company hopes to bridge the gap between the initial capital expenditure and the eventual energy savings.
The Broader Context of Wastewater Regulation
This project arrives at a time when Virginia is already reevaluating how it handles wastewater byproducts. Beyond energy production, the state has recently tightened regulations regarding the use of biosolids as agricultural fertilizer. Lawmakers moved to restrict the application of these materials on farmland following public concern over the presence of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS. Often referred to as “forever chemicals,” these substances are pervasive in consumer goods and eventually concentrate in human waste. While the new energy facility focuses on methane, state officials continue to discuss what remains in our wastewater and how it is processed.
As the Hampton Roads Sanitation District and Virginia Natural Gas move toward filing their cost-recovery request in the coming months, the project stands as a test case for how utilities can repurpose municipal infrastructure to meet sustainability goals. Should the Virginia Beach facility succeed, it may provide a roadmap for tapping into other massive sources of organic waste, such as landfills, which Garofalo noted can produce up to five times the gas output of a standard treatment plant. The shift from flaring gas to piping it into homes reflects a growing trend in infrastructure management: the search for value in the materials that cities have spent decades trying to disappear.
