LINDEN — South Jersey Industries, along with its partners Captona and RNG Energy Solutions, broke ground on Tuesday, April 16, on the Linden Renewable Energy project, soon to be one of the nation’s largest food waste-to-renewable natural gas facilities.
The project will convert organic waste into biomethane using proven anaerobic digestion technology in the New York/New Jersey metropolitan area. The biomethane will then be upgraded to pipeline-quality natural gas for injection into the Elizabethtown Gas system next to the site.
“SJI is incredibly proud to break ground on one of the nation’s largest food waste-to-renewable natural gas facilities in the United States,” said Mike Renna, president and CEO of SJI, during a groundbreaking ceremony attended by industry and government officials from across the state, as quoted in a press release.
“This project is an important reminder about the critical role that our state’s natural gas utilities and natural gas infrastructure will play in our energy transition,” Renna said in the press release. “From the creation of hundreds of jobs, the potential to reduce greenhouse gases and the use of innovative technology, this project is another example of how SJI is leading the way toward a cleaner energy future.”
The project also provides additional advantages, offering New York City, Northern New Jersey, and the broader metro region an opportunity to manage their organic waste streams to comply with state and local food waste regulations that require organic waste to be diverted from landfills.
“When we got involved in the project, it was already late stages, in terms of development, so I was not involved in the site selection, other than to say that I understand that Linden, due to its access and proximity to major thoroughfares, was obviously one of the things very attractive about it,” said Renna in an interview with LocalSource on Wednesday, April 17.
“It was ample space. It was obviously a very large footprint. It was the proximity to the highways and major transportation arteries in New Jersey, as well as its proximity to New York City, which is going to be another leading source of the supply of the actual food waste itself. There are plans down the road for this plant to be accessible to barge. So the ability to move this food waste via a barge is also something that’s very attractive and unique in this project.”
Landfills represent a third of human-made methane emissions in the United States. By diverting organic waste from landfills, LRE is anticipated to avoid an estimated 120,000 metric tons of CO2e annually when working at full capacity.
“It’s brought to pipeline quality at the facility, so there’s the digesters that ultimately process that turns the organic waste into methane, and then the methane is further treated and then it’s directly injected into the Elizabethtown gas system. It will be blended with geological natural gas and then it’ll be moved to the Elizabethtown system,” continued Renna in his interview with LocalSource.
“Landfills are the leading source of methane. We, at SJI, have RNG projects. We’re creating renewable natural gas from three different feed stocks. We’ve got a portfolio of dairy farms, largely across the midwest, that there’s methane there for direct injection into either a utility system or interstate pipeline. We’ve got two projects in New Jersey where we’re taking conventional landfill gas and again converting it into natural gas where we directly inject it, in one case, into an interstate pipeline and, in the other case, into a gaseous system and now we have this project in Linden which will take organic food waste and create gas as well.”
Construction on the facility began in January 2024 and is slated to be completed in the fourth quarter of 2025. When complete, the facility will convert up to 1,475 tons of waste to produce up to 3,783 MMBtu/day of RNG — this is the energy equivalent value of 30,200 gallons of gasoline per day.
“Obviously we’re proudly using union labor,” said Renna in his interview with LocalSource. “For a project like this you want partners that are steeped in experience in constructing and operating a site like this. But I think our biggest partners are Captona and RNG, who did all of the early stages and were really the lead developer throughout. And we’ve got a number of other major players with a lot of experience who are going to be responsible for construction. But the waste callers again are all under contract from New Jersey.”
LRE will use onsite Bloom Energy fuel cells to produce onsite electricity, thereby minimizing reliance on the local grid and associated carbon emissions.
The project will also produce 200-300 cubic yards per day of digested solids that can be used as a soil amendment, which is a natural organic byproduct of the anaerobic digestion process and can be used as an alternative to chemical fertilizers.
“There will be a good amount of full-time jobs to operate the system and the facility. The bulk of the jobs will be coming during the construction period. I believe there’s somewhere between 50 and 80 full-time jobs,” said Renna in his interview with LocalSource.
“There will be folks that are currently employed by SJI and who have responsibilities for different assets in our portfolio that will be involved in construction oversight and construction management, but anybody that’s going to be working there will be hired outside of someone who’s currently employed. There will be 80 new jobs.”
Renna explained that most of the organic waste streams would be shipped to Linden by truck, although barges might become an option a little bit down the road. “But again, I think it’s one of the things that’s really unique and attractive to this particular site,” he added.
“Captona is proud to be a partner in this landmark food waste-to-RNG facility in the New York and New Jersey region,” said Izzet Bensusan, managing partner and founder, Captona, in a press release. “This groundbreaking represents a significant step in the continued growth of our Energy Transition Infrastructure portfolio of Fuel Cell, RNG, Solar and Storage projects. By putting the region’s food waste to productive use, this project not only reduces emissions but also offers an important waste management solution.”
“It’s an SJI asset, it’s an SJI investment, so SJI will ultimately have responsibility,” emphasized Renna in his interview with LocalSource. “In terms of who is going to handle the day-to-day operations, SJI will have responsibility for them. But I would anticipate that we’ll contract that out to an entity that is steeped in experience for operating these types of facilities. The management and oversight will be SJI.”
Renna was enthusiastic about the project, which he explained was groundbreaking in what it intended to undertake.
“We’re just incredibly excited and proud to be a part of this,” he said during his interview. “In many ways, this is a flagship project for SJI, who’s a leader in this space. But it’s also, I think, important to emphasize how important this project is to New Jersey. It’s an elegant solution for creating energy from food waste, but it’s also the first large-scale renewable energy project of its kind in New Jersey.”
“It really is a fascinating space to talk about it,” continued Renna. “Even the dairy farms. You come to a place like northwest Minnesota or the Dakotas and you’re talking 11,000 head of cattle and milking cows and you’re taking all that waste and you’re creating energy; methane that would have just escaped into the atmosphere.”
He agreed that this project will be the example that every other project is looking toward.
“This is the largest project of its kind, certainly in the country and we believe in the world,” Renna said. “So this will be the largest food waste-to-energy project, renewable natural gas project, in the country. And New Jersey’s committed to clean energy and decarbonization and there’s been a lot of leases granted for offshore wind. This will be the first and largest project to go operational.”
Renna also pointed out how important it was to work with Linden Mayor Derek Armstead on the Linden Renewable Energy project.
“He’s been integral to this project from the onset,” he said.
“He (Mayor Derek Armstead) spoke yesterday at the groundbreaking. Our partner, Jim Potter, from Renewable Energy Ventures, worked very closely with the mayor.”
The mayor could not be reached for comment.
Photos Courtesy of Jacqueline Zygadlo