Construction is underway on the nation’s largest on-farm biogas facility
JASPER COUNTY—Renewable Dairy Fuels, a part of AMP Americas, has begun construction on what the company describes as the country’s biggest on-farm anaerobic-digester-to-vehicle-fuel operation.
The project, located in Jasper County, will be the company’s second biogas facility producing renewable natural gas from dairy waste for transportation fuel. Expected to be up and running this summer, the facility will be 50 percent larger than RDF’s operation a few miles away at Fair Oaks Farms in Fair Oaks, Indiana.
Once the new facility is operational, three digesters at three dairy farms will convert 950 tons of dairy waste from 16,000 head of milking cows into 100 percent RNG on a daily basis. The RNG will then be injected into a pipeline owned by partner NIPSCO, where it will be used to fuel Fair Oaks semi-trucks. Each of the digesters is a mixed plug flow digester designed and built by DVO Inc.
In a purely paper transaction, the RNG will also do good several states away. Dean Garrett, NIPSCO’s manager of major accounts, said that the RNG from Fair Oaks is also being purchased by the state of California in a process similar to investing in energy or emission credits. “RNG from dairy waste is at an all-time premium in California,” he said. “It can be used for electricity, heating or condensed natural gas.”
“Transportation is now the largest source of greenhouse gases in the United States and a major source of smog-causing pollution. It’s more important than ever to encourage further adoption of clean and efficient domestic RNG within the trucking industry,” said Grant Zimmerman, CEO of AMP Americas. “Right now, there isn’t enough RNG being produced to meet customer demand. Our new project will help make real headway toward closing the supply gap.”