Renewable Dairy Fuels (RDF), a business unit of Amp Americas, announced that its second biogas facility producing renewable natural gas (RNG) from dairy waste is now operational and has begun delivering RNG into the NIPSCO natural gas pipeline system to be used as transportation fuel. The facility is located in Jasper County, Indiana and is now the largest dairy project of its kind in the country.
The Jasper County site will convert 600 tons of manure per day generated from 16,000 head of milking cows from the Bos, Herrema, and Windy Ridge dairy farms into 100% renewable transportation fuel. The new facility is 50% larger than RDF’s first operation at Fair Oaks Farms in Indiana which has been online since 2011 and was the first (and the largest until now) dairy biogas-to-transportation fuel project in the country.
Amp Americas also announced that Andy Dvoracek has joined Amp Americas as vice-president of business development. Dvoracek will be responsible for new growth and expanding the company’s dairy RNG project portfolio.
Prior to joining Amp Americas, Dvoracek was vice-president of development at Camco Clean Energy, a global leader in sustainable energy project development, where he managed origination and investment in carbon asset management projects and biogas development. In his role with Camco, he worked closely with Amp Americas and Fair Oaks Farms (site of Amp’s initial RNG project) for several years. He holds a BA from Saint John’s University and an MPA in Environmental Science, Policy and Management from Columbia.
“Andy has as much experience in RNG and working with dairy farms to reduce carbon emissions as anyone in the industry,” said Grant Zimmerman, chief executive officer of Amp Americas. “We’ve worked extensively with Andy through our long-term partnership with Camco, one that will become even stronger with Andy on our team. With his wealth of valuable knowledge and strong network within the industry, he will be instrumental in helping us develop future dairy RNG projects.”
A pioneer in the renewable transportation fuel industry, Amp Americas continues to expand its national footprint and to invest heavily in dairy RNG projects by partnering with dairy farmers across the country to bring more ultra-low CI gas to market. Amp Americas is already producing at an annual rate of over 4 million gallons of RNG and is working on projects that will increase that rate in 2019 and beyond. In addition, the company’s network of high performance, ultra fast-fill CNG fueling stations is now up to 20 and continuing to grow. The company supports some of the largest CNG fleets in the country including UPS, US Foods, and Dairy Farmers of America.
“RNG reduces greenhouse gas emissions by up to 100% when compared to diesel. In addition to improving air quality and sustainability, converting dairy waste into transportation fuel improves farm profitability, creates well paying rural jobs, and saves fleets money,” Zimmerman said. “There’s an abundance of dairy waste on farms all over the country that could be better leveraged to meet the demand for RNG.”
Cow manure from four farms is collected from the barns and delivered to tanks where it is heated to facilitate a process called anaerobic digestion. Much like digestive bacteria and enzymes in a cow’s stomach, microbes inside the tanks work to break down the waste and release methane, a form of renewable natural gas. The biogas is captured, purified, and compressed to become RNG that is then injected into the pipeline.