Pacific Gas and Electric reaches milestone for renewable natural gas
Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) reached an historic milestone this week, as it has begun the process to purchase California-produced renewable natural gas (RNG) for residential and small commercial customers.
Further, the company is also announcing a new biomass-to-RNG project.
“A clean and decarbonized energy future requires bold steps and breakthrough technologies. We’re excited and eager to partner with other change-makers in Northern California to expand and scale the production of clean, renewable natural gas from the abundant wood waste available within our state,” Jason Glickman, engineering, policy and strategy executive vice president at PG&E, said.
This new woody biomass-to-RNG partnership pilot project is a collaboration between PG&E and West Biofuels located in Woodland, Calif. Each year, PG&E prunes or removes dead, diseased, or dying trees that may compromise powerline safety as part of its wildfire prevention efforts. This vegetation management work will also help supply forest waste for the pilot project.
The woody biomass-to-RNG project will test new technology that converts wood and forest waste into a clean source of pipeline-ready natural gas. The facility uses advanced technology to convert most of the renewable carbon in the biomass into natural gas, maximizing output and eliminating emissions during production. This RNG source will provide natural gas service to residential and small commercial customers.
The initiative is the first step in a plan to procure RNG to serve 15 percent of its residential and commercial demand by 2030.
Outside of this pilot, PG&E looks to issue a second round of RNG procurement before the end of the year. These projects are to be located in California and must create RNG from organic waste. Multiple types of organic waste feedstock will be eligible to participate, such as food waste, wastewater, and wood waste.
Also, PG&E continues to connect new California RNG production sites to its gas pipeline system. To that end, it is planning to interconnect a new landfill based RNG facility located in the Bay Area in early 2024. As of October 2023, PG&E has delivered more than 1.5 billion cubic feet of RNG to buyers within the transportation sector that fuel up at one of PG&E’s 22 compressed natural gas facilities.
PG&E Corporation is a combined natural gas and electric utility serving more than 16 million people across 70,000 square miles in Northern and Central California.
