Nopetro to Launch Florida’s Second RNG Facility; Sets Sight Beyond
Nopetro Renewables is building Florida’s second-ever landfill gas-to-renewable natural gas (RNG) facility in Indian River County, with plans to launch in January 2025 and scale to 400,000 MMbtus later that year. The company, which built its first RNG fueling station for heavy-duty trucking fleets in 2011, now owns and operates 15 distribution sites across Florida. But the Indian River project in Vero Beach is its first production plant.
Nopetro Renewables is building Florida’s second-ever landfill gas-to-renewable natural gas (RNG) facility in Indian River County, with plans to launch in January 2025 and scale to 400,000 MMbtus later that year.
The company, which built its first RNG fueling station for heavy-duty trucking fleets in 2011, now owns and operates 15 distribution sites across Florida. But the Indian River project in Vero Beach is its first production plant.
“We’d been sourcing our RNG from third parties for years; it made sense to begin producing it ourselves and distribute it through our infrastructure,” says Jorge Herrera, CEO Nopetro Energy.
This new public-private partnership will entail capturing the county’s landfill gas; piping it to Nopetro’s adjacently located property; and conditioning, cleaning, and converting it for injection into the pipeline for use at fueling facilities around Florida.
Partners in the $40M project include engineering construction firm Mead & Hunt, local distribution company Florida City Gas, and Nova Infrastructure, an investment fund.
Indian River County will incur no capital costs while receiving annual royalty payments from RNG sales. Nopetro has done similar projects through this P3 public-private partnership structure, taking on construction, financial, and operational risks rather than transferring those risks to jurisdictions.
Today about 12 municipalities and businesses across the Sunshine State contract with the company, including Central Florida’s transit system, school districts, and several of the country’s top waste management companies.
“We see great opportunity in Florida. The population is growing quickly compared to much of the rest of the country, so from an RNG perspective this means more resources available to us – and more potential projects,” says Herrera, a long-time entrepreneur and former practicing lawyer.
He pivoted to natural gas after working on an energy transaction for the Internal Revenue Service that sparked his curiosity.
“I realized our country had one of the largest natural gas supplies in the world, and it was cleaner and cheaper [than petroleum-based fuels]. So, I started looking at potential downstream markets.”
Fast forward to today, and next on the aspiring agenda is to expand to metro areas beyond Florida and to target not just landfill operators, but food processors and wastewater treatment plants with biogases that have potential to serve as renewable resources.
Several projects are already in the works in other states that Herrera says he expects to move toward positive final investment decision status in 2025.
Landfill prospects have been fairly easy to come by. They are typically the largest biogas emitters, and with that comes potential for economy of scale. Operators see it as an alternative to flaring while generating an additional revenue stream to the benefit of their constituencies, Herrera says.
The food processors and wastewater treatment plants he talks to are looking for the same environmental and monetary advantages. Like landfills, some wastewater treatment plants have turned their biogas into product for years. Few food waste generators, while large emitters, have optimized their biogas from a lifecycle perspective; rather they typically pay to haul, landfill and or burn it.
So, while food waste-to-RNG is in its infancy, developers like Nopetro are watching this emerging market, expecting to see healthy growth.
There seems to be no lack of off takers.