An Ontario bioenergy firm is counting a winery among its partners in a process that will see electricity created from grape byproducts.

StormFisher Biogas and Inniskillin Wines hope to convert up to 2,000 tonnes of byproducts like grape skins and seeds that would otherwise end up in a landfill leaking methane gas into the atmosphere.

Methane is a potent greenhouse gas, but if captured, can be used as a fuel to produce electricity.

"This partnership is a win for residential power consumers, a win for Inniskillin, a win for StormFisher and a win for the environment," Bruce Nicholson, senior winemaker at Inniskillin, said in a news release issued Wednesday.

Inniskillin operates its main Ontario winery near Niagara-on-the-Lake.

"Inniskillin is going to be one of several groups we're going to be working with," Ryan Little, StormFisher's vice-president of business development, told CTV.ca.

Inniskillin parent company is Vincor Canada, which is considering expanding the program to other wineries it owns in the Niagara Peninsula, one of Canada's best wine- and fruit-production regions.

The actual generating plant will be located in Port Colborne, Little said.

When StormFisher's opens in 2009, the plant will produce about 2.5 megawatts of power. Generally speaking, that's enough to power 2,500 homes for a year, he said.

Little said StormFisher plans to open up two other facilities in Ontario that year -- one in London and the other about a 20-minute drive northwest of Guelph.

All will operate off byproducts from the wine and food industries, he said.

This type of technology is already in use in Europe. "All byproducts in Europe go to either biogas or compost," Little said.

The process quickly "digests" the organic matter in the absence of oxygen to produce methane and carbon dioxide. The methane can be used to create electricity and heat or sold as natural gas, the StormFisher website said.

Any electricity would be marketed through a Hydro One program for small producers, which guarantees a price of 11 cents per kilowatt-hour, Little said.

The program has made biogas economically feasible, he said. "A year ago, you just wouldn't be able to break even."

StormFisher is looking to build some plants east of Toronto in 2010, he said.

While the plants will be able to digest almost anything organic, they are being located in food-processing areas because of the high-quality raw material, Little said.

"We like the consistency and regularity of the food industry's byproducts," he said.

"Green bin" byproducts from households aren't being considered for use, he said.