Ameresco has started commercial operations at its latest renewable natural gas plant, which is expected to reduce about 27,000 tons of carbon emissions annually.
The renewable natural gas (RNG) facility, located at the Republic Services Brickyard Landfill in Danville, Illinois, is able to capture landfill gas and turn it into low-emissions fuel used as an alternative to fossil fuel-based diesel. Ameresco has now completed 12 renewable energy projects with Republic Services, with 10 more currently in permitting or construction phases.
Municipal solid waste landfills are the third-largest human-caused source of methane emissions, releasing about 103.7 million metric tons of carbon emissions equivalent in 2021, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. The RNG process instead uses these emissions for fuel before they enter the atmosphere. The EPA estimates that waste-to-energy projects are able to capture about 60% to 90% of methane emitted from a given landfill.
"Creating clean energy, reducing harmful emissions, and making a tangible impact on the environment towards a carbon-neutral future depends on collaboration,” said Michael Bakas, executive vice president of Ameresco. “Through our long-term partnership with Republic Services, we were able to create a dispatchable baseload resource at the Brickyard Landfill. This will turn waste into a reliable source of renewable energy and provide tremendous resiliency to enhance our nation’s security of supply for the years to come."
In addition to its RNG projects, Ameresco announced multiple partnerships last year to support a variety of clean energy innovations in the United States, Europe, and Canada.
As one example, Ameresco and Schaeffler Aerospace Canada formed a partnership last October for a large-scale energy efficiency project for cooling, heating, and air quality systems. Ameresco has worked to install high-efficiency chiller and boiler systems at the Schaeffler manufacturing site in Ontario, Canada, contributing to 1.18 million kilowatt hours of energy savings and lowering the facility's emissions by about 15%.
Ameresco works within multiple industries, from healthcare to schools, on renewable energy, energy infrastructure, energy analytics software installation, and more. Among these projects are a solar installation at the Boston Logan Airport, controls installation for the Memphis streetlight network, and a wind energy project in Greece, to name a few.
