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Mashantucket - When the Mashantucket Pequot Tribe trumpets its commitment to things green, it's not just talking about the stuff gamblers fork over at Foxwoods Resort Casino.



It's just as likely to be calling attention to its clean-environment initiatives, which include the recycling of wood pallets, cooking oil, newspaper, cardboard, plastic and glass; the incineration of nonrecyclable waste, and the award-winning "green roof" design of its Mashantucket Pequot Museum and Research Center.



And then there's the state-of-the-art cogeneration power plant the tribe dedicated Wednesday - a $35.7 million project that sets the tribe on a "green path" toward energy independence, according to Robert Birmingham, executive director of the tribe's planning department.



Birmingham and others, including Rodney Butler, chairman of the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Council, and Charlene Jones, former tribal councilor and chairwoman of the tribe's utilities authority, addressed about 40 people who gathered on Foxwoods' Great Cedar concourse to herald the "co-gen" project, which went online in June and currently supplies nearly 60 percent of the electricity consumed on the Mashantucket Pequot reservation as well as the casino's heating and cooling needs.



"One fuel, two energies," Frank Zaino, construction manager for the project, told reporters who toured the plant, which is tucked into a second-floor boiler room in the back of Foxwoods' Grand Pequot Tower. The plant features two 10,300-horsepower, jet-engine turbines that convert natural gas into electricity and steam that's trapped to provide the heating and cooling. It occupies about 20,000 square feet, space contractors freed up by removing four of the eight gas-fired boilers that used to heat the casino.



Each of the turbines can produce 7.5 megawatts of electricity, together enough to light 150,000 100-watt bulbs at the same time. By comparison, three 7.5-megawatt turbines power the University of Connecticut's cogeneration system in Storrs.



Foxwoods' cogeneration system has an overall efficiency rating of 82.5 percent, far better than a regular power-production system's efficiency of 32.5 percent, according to the tribe. The new steam system has an efficiency rating of 94.5 percent compared to the boilers' 65 to 70 percent.



Michael Collins, sales manager for Yankee Gas, the Northeast Utilities company that along with Norwich Utilities supplies the system's natural gas, said NU is proud of its partnership with the tribe. He referred to the system as a "light green" initiative since it still involves the burning of a fossil fuel, albeit a relatively clean one.



"It will save money, and save energy," he said.



Which brings us to the green the tribe spends on electricity, a tab that's been running to $24 million a year. In an earlier interview, Jones, the tribal utilities chairwoman, said the cogeneration system "should pay for itself in three years" in energy cost savings.



Last month, the state Department of Public Utility Control approved payment of a $6.75 million grant for the system. Such grants - the one for the Mashantuckets was approved three years ago - are intended to spur investment in technologies that can reduce demand on the region's power grid.



b.hallenbeck@theday.com

