PG&E partners with Maas, California Energy Exchange to turn cattle waste into RNG

Under a new partnership between Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E), Maas Energy Works, and California Energy Exchange (CEE), manure from thousands of California’s cows will be converted into renewable natural gas (RNG).

This biomethane gas will provide another source of renewable energy for PG&E customers, aid the state’s greenhouse gas reduction goals, and offer dairy farmers a new economic option. It works by capturing methane at the source, drawing from dairy farms, and utilizing anaerobic digestion to make pipeline-ready RNG for transportation to PG&E’s gas system via CEE’s pipeline. Currently, this project is focused on Merced County, with funding from the California Public Utilities Commission’s Dairy Biomethane Pilot Program.

“Together, in partnership with the dairies, we’re able to take greenhouse gas emissions out of the atmosphere and, in turn, provide clean, renewable gas to PG&E’s residential and business customers, including the transportation industry,” said Chris DiGiovanni, director of Wholesale Marketing and Business Development for PG&E. “PG&E was an early supporter of California’s statewide goal to reduce methane emissions to 40 percent below 2015 levels by 2030, and projects like this are key steps toward this effort.”

Merced projects through Maas Energy’s facilities have been working since mid-December, utilizing a third-party pipeline to flow products to PG&E’s transmission system. Without the project, all this methane would end up in the atmosphere. Approximately 55 percent of California’s methane emissions come from dairies and livestock, according to the California Air Resources Board 2018 Greenhouse Gases Emissions Inventory.

“Maas Energy Works, and our 15 dairy family partners, are grateful to PG&E for delivering our clean cow gas to the market,” Daryl Maas, CEO for Maas Energy, said. “Merced County is the nation’s second-largest dairy county, and we expect this project will make Merced a leading producer of renewable transportation fuels as well. This effort prevailed through permitting, COVID, construction challenges, and many other ‘first ever’ milestones.”

Traditionally, methane conversion and transport like this have been derailed through a mix of factors, including lack of access and cost-effective alternatives. The partners tout mid-market pipelines, like the one used by CEE for the Maas Energy project, as major inroads to making methane capture a cost-effective RNG source.