Sacramento Ethanol Partners (SEP) in conjunction with Sacramento Power, Inc. (SPI) proposed to build a 148.5 MW peak (115 MW baseload) combined-cycle cogeneration power plant and an adjacent 12 million gallon per year ethanol plant. SEP would produce ethanol fuel (and several secondary products) from rice straw, which is a troublesome agricultural waste. Using the state-of-the-art concentrated-acid hydrolysis process, SEP would annually convert 132,000 tons of rice straw into 12 million gallons of ethanol. This process would eliminate the post-harvest open field burning of rice straw on some 40,000 acres, approximately 15 percent of the total Sacramento Valley rice under cultivation.

Tetra Tech provided complete oversight of the Application for Certification (AFC) permitting process. We prepared the project description and coordinated preliminary engineering design with the environmental analysis to obtain all necessary permits and exemptions for the project. Tetra Tech was responsible for regulatory agency and CEC liaison, pre-filing workshops, attendance at technical workshops, and for development of testimony for all environmental areas.