Dominion Energy Pledges to Reduce Methane Emissions through Renewable Natural Gas and Other Initiatives

Smithfield & Dominion Logos

In early August, Dominion Energy, in
partnership with Smithfield Foods, through their joint venture firm Align
Renewable Natural Gas, broke ground on a new project to reduce methane
emissions in North Carolina. This $250 million “manure-to-energy” project will supply
electricity to local households and industries by capturing methane emissions
from hog and dairy farms and converting it into renewable natural gas. The
project will create covered lagoons on the hog farms, which will work as
anaerobic digesters to capture the waste methane, clean it, and reuse it. The
technology will be installed across 19 farms in the region, with the goal of
making renewable natural gas 4% of their system by 2040.

Industry-Leading
Initiative

This project comes six months after Dominion pledged to
reduce their own methane emissions in February 2019. Dominion Energy announced that
the new initiative will stop over 430,000 tons of methane from entering the
atmosphere, building on their successful 2009 reduction initiative. Dominion’s
goal with this new voluntary endeavor would double the removal seen over the
past decade, with the tonnage of reduced emissions equal to planting nearly 180
million new trees or removing 2.3 million daily car emissions for a year. This
industry-leading initiate takes a momentous stand to reduce methane emissions
by 50% by 2030 from its natural gas infrastructure, based on 2010 levels.
Dominion will primarily focus on reducing or eliminating gas venting from
maintenance operations to keep methane in the system and out of the atmosphere.
The
initiative also builds on the 50 percent reduction in carbon emissions Dominion
Energy has achieved across its electric fleet since 2000, and the significant
advances it is making with renewable energy.

Reduce Methane Emissions
Source: Dominion Energy

Methods of Methane Reduction

As the primary component of natural gas, methane is used to generate one-third of the nation’s electricity and is used to heat 118 million American homes, as well as power various industries. Through a 2.5 million-mile national underground pipeline system, natural gas is transported to homes, power plants, and businesses across the United States.

Dominion Energy will achieve its historic
emissions reduction goals in three primary ways:

  • Reducing or eliminating gas venting during planned maintenance and inspections, and instead, capturing the gas to reuse/recycle it.
  • Replacing older equipment across its system with new, low-emission equipment (e.g., replacing natural gas pumps at gas wells and old cast iron/steel pipes with high-pressure plastic to reduce leaks, thereby reducing these emissions by 90%).
  • Expanding leak detection and repair programs across its entire system using infrared cameras. Dominion will continue to improve their methods as the technology becomes available.

Wind and Solar Initiatives

Dominion is also pursuing a few other green initiatives, already having installed some solar and wind farms in Virginia, with a plan to bring 3,000 megawatts of new solar and wind production online by 2022. At peak output, that amount is enough energy to power 750,000 homes.

“We recognize we need to do more to reduce
greenhouse gas emissions to further combat climate change,” said Diane Leopold,
President and CEO of Dominion Energy’s Gas Infrastructure Group. “We’ve made significant progress, but we’re determined to go much
further. With this initiative, we are transforming the way we do
business to build a more sustainable future for the planet, our customers, and
our industry.”

To learn more about Dominion’s commitment to the environment, read more here.

Sources:

https://news.dominionenergy.com/2019-02-12-Dominion-Energy-to-Reduce-Methane-Emissions-from-Natural-Gas-Infrastructure-by-50-percent-Over-the-Next-Decade

http://wvmetronews.com/2019/05/14/dominion-curbing-greenhouse-gas-emissions/

https://www.dailypress.com/news/dp-nws-dominion-methane-cuts-20190212-story.html

https://www.wvonga.com/press/wvonga-press/15616-wv-s-natural-gas-industry-committed-to-reducing-emissions.html

https://www.nationalhogfarmer.com/business/smithfield-dominion-energy-break-ground-largest-rng-project

https://www.bloomberg.com/press-releases/2019-06-27/dominion-energy-seeks-projects-to-expand-solar-development-in-virginia

https://www.power-technology.com/news/dominion-smithfield-natural-gas/

https://www.smithfieldfoods.com/press-room/company-news/dominion-energy-and-smithfield-foods-break-ground-on-largest-renewable-natural-gas-project-in-north-carolina