Frito-Lay Goes Off The Grid, Produces Power

DAYVILLE, Conn. -- A Connecticut snack food maker has gone off the region’s power grid, Hartford television station WFSB reported.

Frito-Lay, the maker of chips and other products, is using new, high-tech generators to make its own power.

Lays potato chips and other food snacks are made at the Frito-Lay manufacturing plant in Dayville. The nearly 30-year-old plant officially went off the grid on Wednesday.

The company is producing its own electric power with a state-of-the-art combined heat and power plant – a turbine engine fueled by gas.

The turbine heats up water, creating 20,000 pounds of steam an hour, which is used to make electricity.

The new plant takes the facility off the electric grid, reducing greenhouse gases and generating 4.6 megawatts of electricity.

"We just leveraged existing programs that were out there to help make it a little bit more of an economically feasible program," said John Irwin of Frito-Lay.

Frito-Lay teamed up with the state and Department of Energy to fund the project.