___________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Evensol next to the waste management facilities . As the second-largest municipal solid waste company in the US , Republic has historically offered some of its landfill sites to third party developers . We pay a royalty for the landfill gas , and in turn we can use it for our RNG project . Not only does the host landfill earn a royalty for our use of the gas , but also environmental benefits for participating in a sustainability project . The two RNG plant designs are basically identical , with both designed to process up to 3000 standard cubic feet of LFG per minute . Each facility cost around $ 50 million including hard costs , soft costs , development , design , and financing .
“ We inject the RNG into different local distribution companies at each site , and each has a different power supplier . Otherwise , the projects are mirror images of one another . The goal is to produce RNG that is fully interchangeable with conventional natural gas . The process produces concentrated methane as the product ( RNG ) and eliminates all but trace amounts of carbon dioxide , water , nitrogen , oxygen , and a host of other compounds . The Foothills project is unique in that it ’ s a virtual pipeline project . This means that the year-round production volume from the plant exceeds what the local pipelines could handle . The solution is to transport RNG in high-capacity trailers to a decant station around 18 miles away for injection into the pipeline .”
Each Evensol project has a planned lifecycle . From beginning to end , David and his team work hard to get the most out of each location before its time is up . As he discusses : “ The sites began producing last year , but since they ’ re supplied by a finite resource ( landfill ), we know that they won ’ t be producing forever . Designing the facilities with this in mind was essential . We size the plants according to their life expectancy , to get the most out of them , for as long as possible . If the landfill remains open and properly managed , the gas supply should steadily increase . Once the landfill closes , a lot of things will start to change . The gas production won ’ t cease immediately , but it will begin to drop off . Our job , as a developer , is to site projects on landfills that will produce a significant amount of quality gas , for a projected period and to a projected quantity . At full capacity , each of the Foothills and Upper Piedmont projects will produce roughly 500,000 dekatherms ( Dth ) per year ; that ’ s a very significant amount of RNG production . We would expect both projects to continue to operate through the permitted life of each of the landfills , and beyond .
A future-focused business , Evensol is looking toward its next acquisitions and developments , even as it optimizes operations at its two operating plants . As David concludes : “ We tend to look at the business in five-year arcs . Because of the nature of what we do , we must reframe our strategy based on the regulatory and political climate . The industry is highly regulated and relies heavily on state and federal compliance programs , so we must operate within those boundaries . The past two administrations have been generally favorable for us , and we expect the next five years will also support our efforts . With that in mind , we ’ ve been very active in trying to acquire new projects , and I look forward to seeing where this venture will take us next .” ■
www . evensol . com
energy-oil-gas . com 115