August 2025 What's on Tap Employee Newsletter

Lots of research Besides visiting plants in the Southeast U.S., a delegation went to Europe to see some thermal hydrolysis installations. “ We did a lot of our due diligence up front, and that ’ s what took so long, ” Howell says. “ We probably took 10 different trips just looking at equipment so that we were making the best decisions we could. ” The decision to produce RNG instead of using biogas to generate power and heat came after careful weighing of options. One advantage is qualifying for the U.S. EPA Renewable Fuel Standard Program. For the transportation fuel it creates, Raleigh Water will be assigned Renewable Identification Numbers, which can be sold to produce substantial income. City climate goals The bioenergy recovery project helps move the city toward the goal of its Community Climate Action Plan, which calls for reducing greenhouse gases by 80% by 2050. “ This project has pretty significant benefits by converting buses to RNG from diesel, ” says Bailey. “ It ’ s an 11% reduction in our municipal greenhouse gas footprint. ” Bailey thinks the project can be a model for other communities, including some participating with Raleigh in a Water Environment Federation task force for utilities that produce RNG. “ We are using it in our own city buses. That ’ s the model we ’ re setting, ” Bailey says. “ We have a good end user in that we have a large bus fleet that will ultimately use all of our RNG. ” The project was also driven by the desire to reduce costs and add biosolids processing capacity, according to Lisa Joseph, resource recovery manager: “ We are trying to be good stewards of taxpayer dollars. Raleigh has seen rapid growth, so we ’ re trying to stay ahead of that as well. ”

Pictured: Renewable Natural Gas produced at the Neuse River Resource Recovery Facility will be used to fuel GoRaleigh buses. (retrieved from: (Lund, S. 2025, June. What to Do With Biogas? Why Not Fuel the … | Treatment Plant Operator )