Badger State Ethanol LLC announced Oct. 9 the results of a recent expansion that has increased ethanol production at its Monroe, Wis., facility, to upward of 90 million gal. -- more than doubling its original nameplate capacity of 40 million gal. from when the plant began production in 2002. 

The company collaborated with Scott Lucas, director of engineering with Lucas E3 LLC (LE3), to expand the plant’s ethanol production capacity.

Lucas said LE3 "is looking forward to bringing low-cost expansion opportunities to the industry. This project successfully demonstrates some of the technology being developed by our team."

In the collaboration, Badger State Ethanol used LE3’s patent-pending and efficient secondary distillation system. LE3’s secondary distillation system is innovative due to the heat integrations that reduce the plant's total energy usage by 2,000 Btu/gal.

The company has experienced a 40%-plus expansion to its distillation capacity, with seamless integration to the existing system. While noting that all plants are different, LE3 expects the expansion to cost less than $1/gal.

“This seamless integration to our system upon start-up and the ease of continued operation have exceeded all our expectations,” said Erik Huschitt, chief executive officer and general manager of Badger State Ethanol.