A dairy farm in Yakima County, Washington will employ the environmentally-friendly water-washing method of biogas upgrading supplied by Greenlane Biogas.
The firm signed a contract with Promus Energy, a project development company in the renewables sector, in early October, which includes the supply of a Totara+ biogas upgrading unit, and additional process equipment to deliver pipeline quality renewable natural gas (RNG).
The Totara+ system can upgrade biogas at a rate of 1,500 SCFM, and will convert organic waste from a herd of 10,500 dairy cows into approximately 8,300 diesel gallon equivalents (DGE) per day of pipeline grade RNG.
Using an environmentally friendly process that removes impurities with water only and no chemicals, the RNG produced by the high efficiency Totara+ upgrading system has a purity > 97 percent methane.
RNG produced at the farm will be sold to nearby transportation fleets and injected into the Williams Northwest Pipeline through a new 3.7-mile pipeline equipped with shared access points that will allow other dairies in the area to easily connect to the pipeline grid if they become RNG producers in the future.
Upgrader market on an upswing
A new report Global Biogas Upgrading Market Outlook (2014-2022) predicts the size of this sector to be $0.26 billion in 2014, reaching $1.97 billion by 2022 (growing at a CAGR of 28.65% from 2014-2022). It cites key drivers including strict Government regulations, greenhouse gas emissions reductions, volatile fertilizer price, and increased demand for renewable energy and transportation fuel.
The report segments upgrader technology into water scrubbing, pressure swing adsorption, cryogenic technique, membrane separation, physical absorption, and chemical scrubbing methods.
