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From trash to renewable energy – RNG facility now open in Hilbert

The plant can convert 4,800 standard cubic feet of landfill gas into renewable natural gas per minute

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October 7, 2024

HILBERT – A first-of-its-kind renewable natural gas (RNG) facility is now up and running in Hilbert – following nearly three years of planning, design and construction.

“This energy would have went into the atmosphere without us,” Will Burton, chief operating officer of Archaea Energy, said. “Our system recovers it so the public and the markets can use it beneficially.”

Burton said Green Meadows RNG Facility – which is located on a 15.28-acre site in Hilbert (W3109 Schneider Road), directly west of Hickory Meadows landfill – is a multi-stage gas processing station that captures biogas produced from the decomposition of organic waste in the landfill and converts it to RNG.

The plant, he said, is a joint venture between Archaea (a subsidiary of bp) and GFL Environmental, which owns and operates the landfill.

“Archaea was formed and founded to develop RNG projects like this (that) harness energy from landfills – whether it’s through renewable natural gas or through gas to power,” he said. “Our whole mantra is ‘how do we take that energy and get it to the local communities, the right market sectors, etc.?’”

The success of a project like the one in Hilbert, Burton said, requires a partnership between two like-minded companies with the same end goal – “to harness energy that would otherwise be sent into the atmosphere.”

“It takes a partner that’s progressive, like GFL Environmental,” he said.

Green Meadows RNG Facility, Burton said, is Archaea’s first in the State of Wisconsin.

“This is our first project in Wisconsin, and we’re pretty proud of that,” he said. “It’s pretty exciting to be up in that area.”

Burton said the Hilbert facility will likely not be the only Archaea plant in the Badger State.

“We have a couple of other prospective places (in the works),” he said.

As the largest RNG producer in the country, Burton said Archaea “is moving at pace.”

Aerial view of a site with large electric equipment.
Multiple local contractors helped with the design and construction of the Green Meadows RNG Facility. Submitted Photo

“Our design, like the one you see at Green Meadows, and what we call our Archaea Modular Design (AMD), is all skidded and fabricated in a way that we’re able to deploy (facilities) in a way we think will be much faster than the market has done historically,” he said. “We’re starting to prove that – we’ve built and brought online eight plants this year.”

Burton said he isn’t aware of any other company that has opened eight plants in a single calendar year – “and we’re not done yet.”

“We will have facilities across the U.S.,” he said. “We’ve got a pipeline of anywhere between 60 and 80 active projects at any given time – so as waste continues to go to landfills, that’s where we’ll come in and try to harness that energy.”

Burton said he sees RNG facilities as a growing portfolio for Archaea.

“So, even though Green Meadows is our first facility in Wisconsin, when we’re all said and done, it’s probably not our last one in Wisconsin because there are multiple landfills, multiple places where organics go across the state,” he said.

Advantages of an RNG facility

The No. 1 advantage of an RNG facility, Burton said, is “it’s better for the environment.”

“An RNG plant is going to reduce the overall emissions frame,” he said. “It’s a pretty wide spectrum, but it’s anywhere from 40% to 400% reduction in overall emissions by being able to capture that energy and get it to market. So, it’s a great benefit for air quality and overall emissions – and our landfill partners feel the same way.”

Another advantage, Burton said, is the role RNG plays in the country’s race for renewable energy.

“The world needs energy – and the world needs renewable energy,” he said. “And that is where Archaea comes in.”

Though landfills are already doing what they can to help decrease the amount of methane that enters the atmosphere, Burton said RNG facilities like Green Meadows can also harness its un-utilized energy.

“I didn’t know this two years ago before I came to this job – but most landfills have what they call a collection system,” he said. “They have a series of wells and pipes that collect the gas that naturally comes off decomposing waste and combust that methane down to CO₂. Methane has been scientifically proven, at this point, to be a more harmful greenhouse gas than CO₂. So the landfills will burn it off using a flare to get the CO₂ to the atmosphere.”

What is lost in this process, however, Burton said, is the energy that methane produces (CH₄).

“So, again RNG facilities take that energy content that wasn’t being used and get it out to markets, consumers and utilities – while at the same time reducing the overall emissions profile,” he said.

Burton said Archaea’s RNG facilities are a piece of the overall puzzle of the world’s energy needs.

“We’ll be adding a considerable amount of volume year over year through that project pipeline,” he said. “We’ll do anywhere from 10 to 20 projects per year for the foreseeable future.” 

How the facility works

Using the proprietary AMD, Burton said the plant can process up to 4,800 standard cubic feet of landfill gas per minute into RNG.

“That’ll make about 1.2 million BTUs a year – that’s roughly the equivalent of what it would take to heat 20,000 homes annually,” he said.

Burton said it can also be used as a substitute for diesel fuel in vehicles, for power generation and in many industrial applications.

“The cool thing about RNG is it’s the same as natural gas, so you can push it into a lot of different existing markets, but it’s got that renewable benefit to it, because, again, this energy would have gone to the atmosphere without us,” he said. 

Burton said the facility will capture the landfill gas – which contains methane, CO₂ and other impurities – and put it through a series of treatment processes that strips out unneeded things.

Will Burton

“You’re pulling off nitrogen, CO₂ and other constituents through various processing ways to get to 97-98% methane, i.e. natural gas,” he said. “Renewable natural gas, for all intents and purposes, is molecularly, chemically the same as methane. It’s CH₄ – one carbon atom, four hydrogen atoms.”

Because of that, Burton said it can easily be transported to pipelines and delivery systems that are already moving natural gas.

“Natural gas is mainly methane, so it doesn’t take special transportation or special additives to get it out to market,” he said. “So, our RNG flows from the Green Meadows facility into a pipeline provider called TC Energy Corporation.”

Locally supported

The Green Meadows RNG facility, Burton said, has three to five locally hired operators.

“That’s for normal, day-to-day operations,” he said.

During the construction of the facility, Burton said Archaea utilized 50-100 contractors – many of them locally sourced.

“I’m really proud of the collective team at Archaea, the folks that are there on-site that are operating that location safely every day and all the folks and all the talents that it took to engineer, design and build it,” he said. “We are pretty proud of that plant.”

When the communities that Archaea is building RNG facilities in understand what the end goal of the project is, Burton said, “the public has been pretty happy.”

“I think a lot of folks didn’t realize where their trash goes and what happens in that lifecycle of that waste products,” he said. “As we’ve gone out and engaged in the communities and held different opening events – they’re pretty impressed.”

The naming of Archaea’s RNG facilities, he said, is pretty straightforward – “there is no secret sauce with it.”

Rather, Burton said, it’s a collaboration between project partners.

“This one came about as the landfill has been called Hickory Meadows for quite a while and then when you think about what we are trying to do – that word green fit nicely,” he said. “So that’s where that name was derived.”

Burton said Archaea works with landfills and dairy farms across 32 states.

“We’re making a lot of progress in this industry, and I am pretty excited for our future,” he said.

Additional information is available at bp.com/archaea.

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