The world has been slowly shifting towards sustainable energy initiatives, with dozens of countries setting net-zero emissions goals, but wildfires raging across California and Oregon have only accelerated the public push for climate change action. Renewable natural gas (RNG) has emerged as a favorable carbon-cutting, clean energy solution among oil, gas, and utility companies because it is compatible with existing natural gas infrastructure and indistinguishable from conventional natural gas. In recent years, major energy companies, including Dominion Energy (NYSE:D), Sempra Energy (NYSE:SRE), Duke Energy Corp. (NYSE:DUK), and Fortis Inc. (TSX:FTS) (NYSE:FTS) have begun investing billions of dollars into clean energy projects, while Greenlane Renewables Inc. (TSXV:GRN), a biogas upgrading systems provider, is offering turnkey solutions to help governments and businesses around the world meet their zero carbon goals.
Unlike major oil and gas companies looking to reinvent the wheel, Greenlane Renewables Inc. (TSXV:GRN) is completely focused on offering full-system solutions to help waste producers, farmers, municipalities, and project developers alike turn a low-value product into a high-value low-carbon renewable resource – RNG.
This market is lifting off and the only company to offer the three main industry technologies, and the ability to provide customers with the best solution based on their needs vs. competitors offering just one solution, is Greenlane Renewables.
Greenlane Renewables has continued to sign on new customers, which resulted in a 45% revenue increase in Q2 2020 from the previous quarter and a sales order backlog of $41.9 million. Add to that a sales pipeline of approximately $694 million as of June 20, and it’s clear why the company is a force to be reckoned with in the RNG market.
Providing Turnkey Biogas Upgrading Solutions
Apart from its multiple core biogas upgrading technologies, Greenlane Renewables has also begun offering turnkey biogas Upgrading-as-a-Service (UaaS) to its clientele. The company teamed up with SWEN Capital Partners to provide biogas UaaS to developers and owners by allowing them to replace initial capital outlays with a monthly fee.
Through their joint venture, Greenlane Renewables will formally launch UaaS in the European biogas market, with the goal of accelerating the implementation of RNG projects in Europe, while SWEN will provide capital for the building and owning of the biogas upgrading systems and will hold a majority share of the joint venture.
The new service will not only remove the burden of ownership from Greenlane’s clientele, but it provides the company with a recurring revenue stream. According to the release, potential customers include project developers and owners of landfills and anaerobic digestion plants that have an interest in the injection of biomethane into the gas grid, but want to keep initial costs down and gain peace of mind from uptime guarantees.
Investments Continue to Pour into the RNG Market
Renewable Natural Gas has continued to gain traction among natural gas utilities in their quest to remain competitive, with several large utilities in the US making RNG-specific announcements in recent years.
In 2018, Dominion Energy (NYSE:D) teamed up with Smithfield Foods to form Align RNG and committed $250 million over 10 years to capture methane from Smithfield’s company-owned and contract hog farms and convert it into clean RNG. Just over a year later, the companies doubled the investment to half a billion dollars to become the largest RNG supplier in the US. This additional investment will expand their joint venture beyond its initial projects in Virginia , North Carolina, and Utah, to pursue new projects across the nation, including in Arizona and California.
In 2019, Sempra Energy’s (NYSE:SRE) SoCalGas, the largest US gas utility, revealed its plans to replace 5% of its traditional natural gas supply with RNG by 2022 and 20% by 2030 in an effort to become the cleanest natural gas utility in North America. The company has also been campaigning for California to embrace RNG and is pushing for an RNG credit for both residential and commercial customers in the state.
In July, utility giant Duke Energy Corp. (NYSE:DUK) joined the RNG movement by taking a minority stake in SustainRNG, a company focused on capturing bovine emissions of methane on dairy farms in Southwest US. SustainRNG is initially targeting the use of the technology to deploy digesters on dairy farms that use water wash-down manure management and expects to begin its first farm-based project in late 2021.
Meanwhile, Canadian utilities company Fortis Inc. (TSX:FTS) (NYSE:FTS) is working to become the first North American utility provider to offer RNG made from wood waste to its customers in an effort to reduce customers’ greenhouse gas emissions by 30% by 2030. The company is teaming up with REN Energy International Corp. to purchase RNG derived from sawdust, wood chips, and bark from its $130-million production facility, which is expected to be in service by next summer and produce 1 million gigajoules of RNG annually.
Of course, with three main technologies (water wash, pressure swing adsorption, and membrane separation), over 100 installations in 18 countries, and its new turnkey UaaS model, Greenlane Renewables Inc. will likely make a significant impact on climate change with the use of RNG.
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