Canada’s Enbridge in RNG partnership

Canadian midstream infrastructure company Enbridge said April 28 it had formed a partnership with Walker Industries and Comcor Environmental to jointly develop renewable natural gas (RNG) projects across Canada.

The partnership will target Canadian landfills to transform waste into RNG for injection into local gas distribution networks. Canada has the potential to develop more than 33 petajoues (PJ) of landfill-derived RNG, Enbridge says, enough to meet the needs of 400,000 homes for a year.

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“RNG presents a tremendous opportunity to provide affordable, reliable, and low-carbon fuel for Canada’s increasing energy needs, leveraging our existing energy system and stimulating economic growth,” said Cynthia Hansen, Enbridge’s executive vice president and president of its gas distribution and storage business.

The first project of the partnership is already under development in Niagara Falls, where a C$42mn (US$33.9mn) renewable natural gas plant producing enough RNG to heat 8,750 homes every year is expected to be in service in 2022. It will reduce greenhouse gas emissions by about 48,000 mt/year.

Canada has over 10,000 landfills, which collectively generate about 30mn mt of CO₂-equivalent (CO₂-e) every year, about 20% of national methane emissions. Only about a third of those emissions are now being diverted to RNG production, leaving an emissions reduction potential of 20mn mt/yr of CO₂-e.

“Renewable natural gas is a low-carbon fuel that will help us get to net-zero,” said Seamus O’Regan, Canada’s minister of natural resources. “Companies like Enbridge are working to lower emissions, create jobs, and develop new opportunities to transform landfill waste into low-emitting energy.”

Outside the partnership, Enbridge recently completed an RNG facility at a Toronto landfill and is working to develop a second in Canada’s largest city. And civic politicians are considering budget proposals for a third project.

Walker Industries, based in Ontario’s Niagara Region, offers waste management and recovery and renewable energy services. Comcor Environmental, based on Cambridge, ON, specialises in the engineering, design, testing, approval, construction, operating and monitoring of landfill-gas collection systems.