Project Profile Project adds RNG to Alberta’s natural gas grid By Maria Church Bio-pipelines N atural gas pipelines that crisscross the Edmonton area will soon flow with an injection of renewable natural gas (RNG) from wood waste. Vancouver-based G4 Insights is demonstrat-ing its proprietary pyrocatalytic hydrogenation technology that produces RNG from lignocel-lulosic biomass at an ATCO Gas Distribution site in Edmonton beginning in February. The project will see a demonstration unit hooked up to ATCO’s natural gas grid – a first for the com-pany and the technology in Canada. “This is the next step of development. We’re enhancing the equipment to support continu-ous operation and we will also test a new mod-ule for injecting the gas into the grid. It’s a step towards commercialization,” says Edson Ng, project lead and principal of G4 Insights. The demonstration unit will process 100 kilograms a day of forestry biomass and pro-duce one gigajoule a day of RNG, or biometh-ane, which is the equivalent of about 30 litres of gasoline. “Natural gas is typically 95 plus per cent methane so that is why our gas is compatible with the grid,” Ng says. As a fuel, the G4 bio-methane reduces GHG carbon emissions by 80 per cent compared to fossil natural gas. G4 Insights formed in 2008 in Burnaby, B.C., by founders Ng, Matt Babicki, Bowie Keefer, and Brian Sellars. After years of tech develop-ment, the company demonstrated its equip-ment in California in 2015 and in Quebec in 2016. Both projects successfully produced RNG in batches to fill natural gas-fuelled vehicles. ATCO took interest in the project around the same time. “G4 Insights was looking to install a demonstration plant that would be able to add the gas to a distribution system,” Imad Khaled, manager of facilities engineering at ATCO, tells Canadian Biomass during an interview at their Ed-monton site where the G4 project will be located. G4 Insights’ Matt Babicki, left, and Edson Ng, right, stand in front of equipment for the ATCO Gas RNG demonstration project. Built at G4’s Vancouver location, the equipment will be dissembled and shipped to ATCO’s facility in Edmonton. Photo courtesy G4 Insights. 20 Canadian BIOMASS JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2018
Canadian Biomass January-February 2018: Page 20
