Construction Complete At Indy High BTU, State’s Largest Renewable Natural Gas Plant

Indiana’s largest renewable natural gas facility is complete and plans to produce renewable natural gas from trash later this month.

The fuel produced at Indy High BTU plant – a partnership between Kintrex Energy, EDL and South Side Landfill – is expected to reduce greenhouse gas emissions comparable to 19,000 passenger cars each year on the road.

The building is only about the size of a football field, filled with high-tech equipment that will take methane gas from trash and convert it to fuel, which will be used to power some of UPS’s fleet of trucks.

The shipping company signed a six-year agreement with Kinetrex. UPS Energy Group director John DeDea says it’s not only an environmentally-driven decision.

“The liquified natural gas and renewable natural gas are cheaper than traditional diesel fuel,” says DeDea. “So the costs make it better for UPS, in order for us to continue to compete and offer competitive prices to our consumers.”

Renewable natural gas is cheaper than other diesel options. Kinetrex Energy President and CEO Aaron Johnson says one of the challenges going forward is getting more engines on the road that can use the fuel his company produces.

“The big hurdle really isn’t one of costs, that’s the benefit, as well as the environmental attributes,” says Johnson. “It’s more or less coming over some of those what I’ll say operational hurdles and changes that you just need to have to change a system when you’re really changing the way people do things.”

According to Kinetrex, more than 8 million gallons of diesel can be replaced with the renewable natural gas produced from South Side Landfill each year.

Contact Samantha at shorton@wfyi.org or follow her on Twitter at @SamHorton5.