Renewable

Nearly half of the natural gas used in transportation in California last year was renewable natural gas (RNG), or biomethane, and the overall volumes of fuel for natural gas vehicles (NGV) have been increasing at the rate of 250% annually for the past three years, according to a recent report from the California Air Resources Board (CARB).

The global natural gas trade is seen growing in line with global consumption over the next 20 years, with imports and exports playing an increasingly vital role in the world’s economy, according to BP plc.

The slew of North American liquefied natural gas (LNG) export projects currently in the works could face stiff competition from renewables in Asian and European power generation markets, according to a new report from economists with The Brattle Group.

Hawaii leaders have set a goal to use 100% renewables by 2045, but liquefied natural gas (LNG) may be a viable and cost-saving supplement to the use of synthetic natural gas (SNG) by Hawaii Gas as a primary fuel in the interim, according to the results of an 18-month bidding process by the state’s only regulated gas utility.

In California generally and for Edison International’s Southern California Edison Co. (SCE) utility particularly, the future role of natural gas in power generation is dwindling in response to a long-standing state water ban causing the closing or repowering of coastal gas-fired plants and more recently from the state’s aggressive climate change policies. Reliability needs, however, will keep some gas-fired generation in the mix for some time.

Investment in new natural gas-fired electric generation will be a “key compliance strategy” under the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Clean Power Plan (CPP), according to an analysis published by Black & Veatch Insights Group.

A Southern Company subsidiary has issued $1 billion in “green bonds” earmarked for investment in renewable projects, pointing to an ongoing shift in domestic power generation.

Executives active in the North American oil and gas industry said greater collaboration between Canada, Mexico and the U.S. was possible and could be a model on the global scale, but short-term challenges abound as commodity prices remain low, supply and demand continue to shift and regulatory uncertainty persists in the U.S. and Mexico.

A series of demonstration projects and testing of a process for converting renewable-based electricity into natural gas for storage began this month in a three-way effort among Sempra Energy’s Southern California Gas Co. (SoCal), the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), and the industry-backed National Fuel Cell Research Center (NFCRC).