Aemetis awarded $4.1M for biogas upgrading unit to produce renewable natural gas

In California, the California Energy Commission awarded Aemetis’s subsidiary, Aemetis Biogas LLC, a $4.1 million grant under the CEC’s Low Carbon Fuel Production Program to construct a biogas upgrading facility.

The biogas upgrading facility will convert dairy biogas to renewable natural gas (RNG) as a final processing step after biogas is delivered via pipeline from anaerobic digesters that Aemetis Biogas is building at dairies throughout Stanislaus and Merced Counties. Aemetis Biogas is currently developing more than a dozen anaerobic digesters at local dairies, with plans for future expansion to several dozen dairies.

The Aemetis Central Dairy Digester and Pipeline Project is designed to capture methane gas currently emitted from dairy manure lagoons, pre-treat the biogas at each dairy to remove harmful components, then transport the methane via pipeline from each dairy to a biogas upgrading facility at the Aemetis Keyes ethanol plant.  After the biogas is upgraded to utility pipeline quality RNG, the RNG will be utilized at the Keyes ethanol plant to replace carbon-intensive petroleum natural gas currently used to generate steam and power at the plant, or will be injected into PG&E’s gas pipeline to be utilized as transportation fuel by trucking companies and bus fleets.