Measure seeks to ease production of renewable natural gas in New Hampshire

Executives from Casella Waste Systems and Rudarpa, a developer of renewable natural gas systems, broke ground last May on an RNG project at Casella’s landfill in Bethlehem.

When most people think of renewable energy, they think of solar, wind, geothermal, biofuel and hydropower. But what about renewable natural gas?

RNG, as it’s called, transforms emissions from waste in landfills, water treatment plants, organic waste, even cow manure, into natural gas that can be trucked and injected into a pipeline that delivers heat to homes, power to electric plants and even fuel to large vehicles.

“We are trying to use waste streams that are currently burnt,” testified Huck Montgomery, director of government affairs for Liberty Utilities, before the Energy and Natural Resources committee on Feb. 15. “We could use that waste that you now pay to get rid of and make it into useful energy.”

Montgomery was testifying in favor of Senate Bill 424, a bipartisan measure introduced by Sen. Jeb Bradley, R-Wolfeboro, that would make it easier to approve deals like the one Liberty has before the Public Utilities Commission: to buy natural gas produced from methane emitted at the Bethlehem landfill owned by Casella Waste Systems. The methane is currently flared off.

That one deal alone would produce about 475,000 dekatherms of RNG, or 4 percent of the gas Liberty provides to customers annually. That’s a very sizable percentage, considering that, as of 2020, wind power only accounted for 3 percent of the state’s electricity production and solar a mere 1 percent.

Of course, the hope and the expectation is that the percentage of those energy sources will grow, but the potential is there for RNG as well, said Sam Evans-Brown, executive director of Clean Energy NH. Brown said gases from landfills in the state could account for up to 10 to 15 percent of our natural gas needs, and when you add on other technologies, it could exceed a quarter of natural gas required.

“The mantra is ‘electrify everything,’ but if we had other industries helping out, that could mean a great deal,” he said. “What is exciting about this bill is the gas industry is engaged in what is moving to a carbon-zero future.”

Casella, along with Rudarpa, a resource recovery company located in Utah, broke ground last May on a natural gas facility at the North Country Environmental Services site in Bethlehem. The company said it expected to create 30 construction jobs and 12 operational jobs. But for it to go forward, it would need to find someone who will buy the gas. The plan is to sell the gas to Liberty Utilities, which last March opened a PUC docket for permission to do so.

The gas would be compressed into trucks and delivered to various points along the company’s pipeline system. The Liberty petition mentions Keene, Concord and Lebanon.

Greenhouse gas reductions

RNG is not new, according to the testimony of Liberty’s experts. The first project to go online was in 1982 at the massive former Fresh Kills landfill on Staten Island in New York. The University of New Hampshire has been using biomethane sourced from the Turnkey Landfill in Rochester since 2009, using it as the primary fuel to operate its cogeneration plant. And Vermont received approval to introduce RNG into its pipeline system, starting in 2021. There are currently 157 operational RNG facilities in North America, with 76 under construction and 79 in development, testified the officials.

According to Liberty, RNG helps reduce greenhouse gas emissions in two ways. First, it greatly reduces methane, which emits carbon dioxide when burned. Both are among the biggest contributors to climate change. Second, it also means that fewer fossil fuels will have to be generated by the controversial method of fracking, which also results in methane emissions.

Liberty cites one study that concludes that use of RNG and biomass-based diesel fuel could reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 19 percent by 2030 and 47 percent by 2050.

In its filing, Liberty also says it has three large customers already lined up to buy 70 percent of the RNG energy produced in Bethlehem. RNG is priced higher than natural gas, but the users would receive Thermal Renewable Energy Credits to bring the price down. Liberty would offer the other 30 percent to customers through a tariff. It expects about 1.7 percent to 4.3 percent of residential customers will participate and 0.7 percent to 1.6 percent of commercial customers.

Liberty said it could procure the gas for 25 percent less if it eventually buys the production facility, and the bill would allow for ratepayers to shoulder that risk. But Bradley has offered an amendment in his bill that would delete that provision, much to the approval of Donald Kreis, the state’s consumer advocates.

“We all learned our lesson at Seabrook,” Kreis said, referring to the years of stranded costs over another proposal that was supposed to save ratepayers money.

Because of the need to address questions such as these, the PUC has held up ruling on the Liberty project, until lawmakers give it more guidance.

‘End of the pipeline’

But the bill is much broader than this one project, and more than just landfill gas, but all fuel produced by the biomass gasification process. And it has much to do with energy security as greenhouse gas emissions. Natural gas prices can jump suddenly when cold weather limits supplies. That doesn’t affect heating customers so much, since their costs are generally smoothed out, but those buying gas on the spot market — such as electric generator facilities powered by gas — can see prices skyrocket.

“As everybody knows, we are at the end of the pipeline. Anything to increase indigenous resources will be helpful,” testified Bradley. “But it always comes down to cost.”

The bill would weigh the monetary value and nonmonetary benefits of the proposal, such as the value of any environmental attributes or carbon offsets, relative to the incremental cost to gas utility customers necessary to achieve those benefits,” he said.

But to allay concerns about cost, the bill has limited the amount of renewable gas a utility could use — at least for now.

Along with Bradley, the Senate majority leader, the bill is co-sponsored by Sen. David Watters, D-Dover, a strong supporter of renewable energy, particularly wind; Rep. Michael Vose, R-Epping, a conservative who heads the House Science Technology and Energy Committee; and Rep. Peter Somssich, D-Portsmouth, who often is at odds with Voss over energy issues.

Liberty was joined by New Hampshire’s other major gas utility, Unitil Corp.

The bill also has the support of the NH Timberland Owners Association, because of the “potential opportunity to turn wood chips into a natural gas product,” said Executive Director Jasen Stock.

But the bill faced some pushback from the newly formed Department of Energy, which wants to eliminate the “nonmonetary benefits” aspects of the measure, saying they would be hard to measure. Watters indicated that he would like to leave that in, because “not everything could be put in dollars.”

But dollars are definitely a goal. A number of other states have passed legislation paving the way for renewable natural gas production. And those projects attract money.

New Hampshire has nothing on the books yet. Indeed, in the Feb. 11-24 issue of NH Business Review, an article reported on RNG Energy Solutions LLC, a Hamptonbased firm developing an organic waste anaerobic digestor project that would produce 3,300 dekatherms per day of RNG. The project has attracted $214 million of industrial revenue bonds. It is located in Linden, N.J.

Bob Sanders can be reached at bsanders@nhbr.com.