Dominion Energy, Smithfield Foods double investment in renewable natural gas projects
Dominion Energy and Smithfield Foods, Inc. announced Wednesday that they will double their investment in renewable natural gas (RNG) projects across the United States to $500 million through 2028.
The additional investment will expand the company’s Align Renewable Natural GasSM joint venture beyond its initial projects in North Carolina, Virginia, and Utah to pursue new projects across the country.
The two companies formed Align RNG in November 2018 and committed $250 million over 10 years to capture methane from Smithfield’s company-owned and contract hog farms and convert it into RNG.
With the additional investment announced this week, the companies expect to produce enough RNG to power more than 70,000 homes and businesses by 2029.
Align RNG’s first project, located in Milford, Utah, is expected to be operational this year and produce enough RNG to power more than 3,000 local homes and businesses at full capacity.
“Our partnership is revolutionizing the future of sustainable energy and agriculture in this country, and we are thrilled to partner with Smithfield to grow this exciting new industry,” Diane Leopold, president and CEO of Dominion Energy’s Gas Infrastructure Group, said. “We’re not only reducing greenhouse gas emissions, we’re also turning a waste product into a clean energy resource,” Leopold continued. “We’re capturing 25 times more greenhouse gas emissions from the farm than are ever released when the gas is used to heat homes or power businesses.”
The companies expect that, once the partnership is fully implemented, it will prevent more than 2.5 million metric tons of greenhouse gases from entering the atmosphere. A typical RNG project consists of a cluster of 15 to 20 farms, Dominion said in a press release. Methane is captured from covered manure lagoons or digesters and transported via a low-pressure biogas transmission line to a central conditioning facility. After the gas is processed to meet pipeline-quality standards, it is delivered to end-users through existing underground pipelines.
“Last year, we joined forces with Dominion Energy in a historic initiative to transform the future of sustainable energy and agriculture,” Kenneth M. Sullivan, president and CEO of Smithfield Foods, said. “This substantial extension of our ‘manure-to-energy’ efforts will help us achieve our ambitious goal to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 25 percent by 2025 across our entire supply chain while creating additional value for local family farmers and providing communities with clean energy.”
