Southern California Edison Company plans to construct an operate an intermediate commercial facility in Santa Monica, California, to convert 200 tons per day of municipal refuse to a medium-Btu gaseous fuel using anaerobic digestion and thermal processing. This paper describes that proposed facility and briefly summarizes the development effort that led to the decision to construct the facility. Efforts on the Company’s energy recovery from waste and biomass program began in 1977 with a technical and economic feasibility study. During 1978/79, further site-specific economic studies were conducted to determine feasible locations for a full-scale commercial facility and to identify possible sites for an intermediate commercial facility that would be used to demonstrate and test the project concept and processes. Preliminary design of the intermediate commercial facility is now underway.