Sustainability over extraction
Where others are mostly seeking profitability, MegaWatt is committed to sustainability for future generations. A project that pencils out for twenty years is worth more than one that pencils out for three.
Who we are
A Kentucky company, working on a Kentucky problem
MegaWatt LLC builds and operates anaerobic digestion capacity for the distilleries, farms and food processors of the Ohio Valley.
Our purpose
MegaWatt was formed around a straightforward observation: Kentucky produces an enormous, steady volume of high-strength organic waste, and almost none of it is being converted into energy. The distilleries that define the state’s identity generate spent stillage year round. The farms around them need soil amendment. The gap between those two facts is the business.
The United States had roughly 2,300 anaerobic digestion systems in operation as of 2022, against more than 17,000 in Europe as of 2018. That gap is not technical. The engineering is well understood and the equipment is commercially available. What has been missing is the willingness to treat biowaste as an input rather than a liability.
We are based in Louisville, and we intend to stay close to the projects we build. Digesters are not appliances — they are living systems that reward attention and punish neglect. That is easier to provide from thirty miles away than from three states away.
How we work
Emulation, then innovation
Europe has run anaerobic digestion at scale for decades. We would rather adopt what already works there than rediscover it slowly and expensively here.
Decisions from data
Digesters fail slowly and for legible reasons. Instrumenting a vessel properly and paying attention to what it reports is most of the work of keeping one healthy.
Build. Produce. Sustain.
Three words, in order. Build the capacity, produce the energy, and leave the ground in better condition than we found it.