Amp Americas says its fourth biogas facility producing renewable natural gas (RNG) from dairy waste now is operational, and has begun delivering RNG into the Alliance natural gas pipeline to be used as transportation fuel.
Located in Morris MN near the state’s western border, the new plant is Amp Americas’ largest dairy RNG project to date and the state’s first on-farm, biogas-to-vehicle fuel facility. With this project, Amp Americas now has developed dairy RNG production on 12 dairies with over 66,000 cows.
Working with Riverview LLP, a dairy operation based in Minnesota, the project captures more than 700,000 gallons of manure per day from three different sites, converts it into renewable methane, purifies it into RNG, and compresses it to inject into the pipeline. Along with two RNG projects in Indiana and another in Arizona, Amp Americas now is operating four of the largest dairy biogas-to-transportation fuel projects in the country, producing a total of over 10 million gallons of RNG annually. Amp Americas markets its dairy RNG to fleets in California along with gas from a number of other dairy, landfill and wastewater projects developed by others through its Amp Americas Marketing arm.
“We’re thrilled to partner with Riverview and to launch our largest project to date,” said Grant Zimmerman, CEO of Amp Americas. “We installed pipelines connecting three of Riverview’s dairies, restarted mothballed digesters, and built our RNG plant and the pipeline injection station.
“This project will produce millions of gallons of 100% renewable transportation fuel and will prevent 100,000 tons of greenhouse emissions each year, the equivalent of taking over 20,000 cars off the road annually.”
Brad Fehr, partner of Riverview, said: “We were skeptical of digester projects and developers before we decided to work with Amp Americas. They built an important project for our community, and we look forward to our long-term partnership.”
During construction, the project employed 140 people, and now in operations, Amp Americas has added six permanent full-time jobs in Morris, bringing the company’s team to a total of 60 across six states. Amp Americas will operate the Riverview RNG facilities under its Amp Americas Services business, a unit of Amp Americas that leverages its nine years of unique experience, expertise, and leadership in biogas operations. Amp Services also operates other dairy RNG projects such as the company’s Indiana projects now owned by Generate Capital, and another dairy RNG project located in Arizona.