The Cape Breton Regional Municipality has received a $750,000 grant to turn 1,800 tonnes of "sludge" from its sewage and waste-water treatment plant into energy.

The waste-water treatment plant on Battery Point in north-end Sydney has been in operation since 2005. Since opening, the sludge remaining after processing has been trucked to the regional landfill to be used for composting.

After a feasibility study of the energy-generating potential of the material, the municipality made an application to the Federation of Canadian Municipalities' Municipal Climate Innovation Program, which provides support to the most innovative projects with the greatest potential to reduce greenhouse gases across the country.

Efficiency Nova Scotia's David Brushett, who is also an on-site energy manager for the municipality, said the municipality is installing an anaerobic digester and combined heat and power system, which will turn the sludge into usable biogas that can be used to generate electricity and heat at the facility.

This will be achieved by installing a large tank to hold the sludge and decomposing it without oxygen to produce biogas.

Projected savings of $250K

Brushett said the initiative should help reduce costs for the municipality.

"This project has the potential to reduce costs to CBRM by approximately $250,000 per year through the reduction of tipping fees at the landfill, through the reduction of trucking costs to truck the sludge to the landfill and through the offsetting of energy at the facility," Brushett told CBC's Information Morning Cape Breton.

The idea is not unique to the Cape Breton Regional Municipality.

Brushett said the Halifax Regional Municipality uses some of these systems to heat their facilities, but does not use them to produce power.

The $750,000 innovation grant will pay for most of the conversion cost, Brushett said, and there is also money available through Efficiency Nova Scotia and other programs.

This latest initiative is part of the municipality's efforts to reduce energy consumption.

In 2014, the municipality set a goal of reducing energy consumption by 15 per cent over five years, but it quickly achieved a 20 per cent reduction, said Brushett.

Other energy-efficiency achievements

"We've done a number of projects throughout the municipality, including LED lighting upgrades throughout many buildings in the municipality," he said. "The water utility has done a wonderful job of reducing water losses in the distribution system by nearly 500 million gallons [1.89 billion litres] per year.

"We've done a number of recommissioning of different buildings, more efficient heating systems."

As a consequence, the municipality's energy costs went from $10.6 million in 2015 to just under $8 million in 2017.