Greening the gas supply and decarbonizing customers

PG&E is actively working to transition the gas system to transport and deliver cleaner fuels such as RNG and hydrogen to help decarbonize PG&E’s operations and the energy used by our customers.

Renewable natural gas

PG&E is working to add RNG to the gas pipeline system in a way that is both safe and helps address climate change. RNG is a renewable energy resource mainly produced from dairies, non-hazardous landfills, and wastewater treatment plants but can also come from various types of organic matter such as forestry waste, agricultural crop waste, and wooden construction waste.

PG&E is working towards our goal to supply 15% RNG to our bundled residential and small commercial gas customers by 2030. In 2022, we filed our RNG Procurement Plan with the CPUC and, in 2023, we filed our application for a woody biomass-to-RNG pilot project. We also launched two competitive solicitations, seeking to procure RNG towards our goal, with more solicitations planned in 2024.

PG&E also works with third-party pipeline operators who have upgraded and repurposed their pipeline assets to transport RNG to PG&E’s pipeline system. In 2023, PG&E grew RNG volumes through existing interconnections, totaling over 30 dairies. These connections provide over 3 million cubic feet of RNG per day, avoiding more than 25,000 tons of methane emissions. In 2024, PG&E is on pace to interconnect additional sources, including landfills, food waste digesters, and dairy clusters, with more than 800,000 dekatherms of RNG volume through mid-year.  

Exploring opportunities with hydrogen

Longer-term, “green” hydrogen has the potential to support our decarbonized future. Produced from a renewable source, green hydrogen has several potential applications, including as fuel for the transportation market (especially heavy-duty vehicles, marine, and rail), as long-duration energy storage, and with fuel cells for backup systems and microgrids.

Working with several project partners, PG&E is preparing to launch the nation’s most comprehensive end-to-end hydrogen demonstration facility. The site is designed to prepare for the hydrogen future by assessing transmission system readiness and gaining experience to safely introduce hydrogen into our existing gas infrastructure.

The centerpiece of the study, known as Hydrogen to Infinity (H2∞), is a large-scale project that plans to blend hydrogen and natural gas in a stand-alone transmission pipeline system. H2∞ also plans to include a new 130-acre facility located in Lodi, California, as a study laboratory that incorporates production, pipeline transportation, storage, and combustion.

Decarbonizing large gas customers and heavy-duty fleets

PG&E is proactively working with our hard-to-electrify industrial and large commercial customers by providing solutions to transition from emission-intensive fuels, such as coal and petroleum coke, to cleaner burning natural gas. Our efforts include providing back-up generation for electric grid reliability using natural gas as an alternative to diesel and pursuing policy changes to incentivize this choice.

In 2023, we interconnected three projects for emergency electric generation to create grid reliability, reducing reliance on diesel back-up generation and avoiding about 13,000 MT of emissions. PG&E also supported customers needing natural gas for their production processes, leveraging our current gas infrastructure to reduce emissions at these facilities.

PG&E is also helping industrial and large commercial customers with hard-to-electrify heavy duty fleets transition from diesel to compressed natural gas (CNG). We completed two CNG projects in 2023, avoiding about 28,000 MT of emissions.