RENEWABLE NATURAL GAS FACILITY COMING TO CENTER TOWNSHIP

Center Township will soon be home to a renewable natural gas production facility that will turn farm waste into energy.

The Indiana County Development Corporation this afternoon revealed details about the project that will convert cow manure into biomethane (renewable natural gas, or “RNG”). Operating out of Lot Two at the 119 Business Park, the venture will partner Aire Liquide Advanced Technologies U.S, which is based in Houston, Texas, with the ICDC and eighteen to twenty dairy farms.

The farms will store manure in airtight containers called anaerobic digesters. Absent oxygen, the manure will decompose and produce biogas, which will be purified at the plant in Center Township. The gas will be injected into Peoples Natural Gas’s pipeline system for residential and commercial use. Farmers will also benefit through the return of the solid and liquid byproducts for bedding for their herds and for fertilizer. The farmers will also receive quarterly cash payments for their product.

Air Liquide has already signed an interconnection agreement with Peoples.

Two state grants totaling about $2.25 million have been secured by Senator Joe Pittman and Representative Jim Struzzi to prepare the 119 Business Park for the new facility. Approximately 4,100 feet of pipeline will be needed to connect the park to the Peoples regulation station north of Neal Road.

Struzzi called the facility a “win-win” for Indiana County.

Struzzi adds that while the plant will provide a good source of energy to the county, it does not overshadow the expected closure of the Homer City Generating Station.