Advancing Novel Biogas Cleanup Systems for the Production of Renewable Natural Gas
Demonstrating conversion and cleanup of biogas and landfill gas into renewable natural gas for cost-effective pipeline injection.
Institute of Gas Technology dba GTI Energy
Recipient
Davis, CA
Recipient Location
37th
Senate District
68th
Assembly District
$881,521
Amount Spent
Completed
Project Status
Project Result
This project concluded in April, 2019. Innovative aspects of the technology were sufficiently strong to attract an industrial energy company, RealEnergy, to re-deploy the equipment at another California landfill and to continue the evaluation of the technology. Some of the project goals associated with the demonstration of the gas cleanup technology and related data collection were not achieved during the project period due to a change of demonstration site and inadequate preparations for weather conditions at the landfill site.
The Issue
Biogas use in California offers an opportunity for lower cost renewable energy production that has a dramatically reduced carbon footprint when compared to fossil fuels. Currently, the cleaning and upgrading of biogas to high quality renewable natural gas (RNG) can be costly, complex, energy intensive, and often consume raw materials that cannot be easily or cost-effectively regenerated. To expand the opportunities for RNG use in California including injection into the natural gas pipeline, direct use for transportation, or more sophisticated electric power applications including turbines and fuel cells, RNG will need to more closely resemble the cost and complexity of fossil natural gas.
Project Innovation
The recipient developed a novel biogas cleanup system for the production of pipeline quality RNG. This project designed a three-stage cleanup system to remove water and carbon dioxide (stage 1), hydrogen sulfide, siloxanes, and oxygen (stage 2), and nitrogen (stage 3) from raw landfill gas to generate pipeline quality gas. The 100 standard cubic feet per minute (scfm) pilot scale cleanup system was deployed at the Coyote Canyon landfill in Newport Beach, CA for testing using actual landfill gas.
Project Benefits
The novel cleanup technologies will increase efficiency and reduce the cost of removing contaminants from landfill gas and upgrading to pipeline quality renewable natural gas (RNG). Lower cost biogas cleanup and upgrading technologies will expand the market for low carbon renewable fuels for both electricity generation and transportation applications.
Affordability
This project set out to demonstrate a low-cost method of converting landfill derived biomass into RNG. The technology could be an alternative to existing multistep expensive state-of-the-art processes. This technology uses off-the-shelf, stable, more environmentally benign absorbent solutions.
Environmental Sustainability
A number of tangible environmental benefits can be realized by injection of cleaned up RNG into the natural gas pipeline. By capturing and utilizing methane that would otherwise be flared, the transportation and power generation industries could use this renewable fuel to displace higher polluting fuels such as diesel.
Energy Security
Successful commercialization of this technology will result in decreased dependence on fossil natural gas by introducing a new renewable natural gas pathway. The renewable source would be available as a back up for solar and wind supplies during downtime or shortages at peak time.
Key Project Members
Kate Jauridez
Subrecipients
Stearns, Conrad and Schmidt Consulting Engineers, Inc.
Nrgtek, Inc.
Match Partners
Southern California Gas Company (SoCalGas)
Energy Power Partners
