Minnesota's first renewable natural gas plant is up and running at an Inver Grove Heights landfill, turning biogases produced by trash into fuel for heavy-duty vehicles.
New York-based OPAL Fuels built and operates the facility, while Republic Services, an Arizona-based company that owns Pine Bend Sanitary Landfill, leases out the land and supplies the biogas. The end product — renewable natural gas — then goes into Xcel Energy's gas pipeline.
"The fact that we can remove or basically eliminate 44,000 metric tons of carbon through this project … every year is very impactful to the communities where we live and work," said Tyler Kraft, general manager at Republic Services, which is involved in 77 similar projects nationally.
The plant has been operational since August but still is ramping up to reach full capacity, Kraft said.
Pine Bend is the largest open landfill in Minnesota and encompasses 255 acres in the southeast metro. The new site, which cost about $40 million to build, is situated on 100 acres on the western side of the Pine Bend property.
Inver Grove Heights has enthusiastically approved the building of the new plant, said Heather Rand, the city's community development director. The city welcomes clean energy projects like this one, she said, "and the investment and jobs this growing sector provides."
The new site replaces an aging plant at Pine Bend that turned methane into electricity but closed several years ago because it became inefficient.
The process of producing natural gas at the 12,000-square-foot site begins with the collection of biogas, which is about 50% methane and is created by the trash in the landfill. Nitrogen and sulfur are eliminated from the mixture, and the methane is separated from the carbon dioxide. The final product — methane — goes into the pipeline and can be pulled out for use at fueling stations.
