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ABC Biogas Data & Statistics

The American Biogas Council is the only organization to continuously survey U.S. developers and operators of biogas capture systems in all four biogas sectors. Counts of biogas facilities are updated on an ongoing basis. Here we share a sampling of facts and figures we can provide to reporters and media outlets. Please contact us with specific data inquiries.

Operational U.S. Biogas Systems

  • The U.S. has approximately 2,600 sites producing biogas. Projects operate in all 50 states.
    Wastewater: 1,240+
    Agriculture: 630+
    Food waste (standalone): ~121
    Landfills: ~ 600

Potential U.S. Biogas Systems

  • Another 17,000 sites are ripe for biogas development today, including at:
    11,205 dairy, poultry, and swine farms
    3,750 wastewater facilities
    1,370 food waste-only systems
    730 landfills
  •  If fully realized, these new biogas systems could produce 25 Gigawatts of electricity and reduce the emissions equivalent of removing 3.4 million cars from the road.
  • These 17,000 new biogas systems would also catalyze an estimated $450 billion in capital deployment for construction activity.
  • This full build-out of biogas systems would result in approximately 900,000 shortterm construction jobs to build the new systems. Not counting added jobs in the supply chain, these facilities would create about 43,000 permanent jobs.

Farm-based Biogas Systems

  • The number of farms that operate biogas capture systems has more than doubled since 2020, from 251 to over 630.
  • On-farm biogas capture systems process 25 billion gallons of manure annually.
  • Today, farms can produce over 61 million MMBtu of energy annually, compared to about 23 million MMBtu five years ago, the equivalent energy of the use of approximately 800,000 U.S. homes.
  • Total investment in farm-based biogas capture systems has now reached $6.4 billion.
  • Dairy farms have the most farm-based biogas capture systems (79%), followed by hog farms (19%). A smaller number of systems recycle poultry manure or crop residues.
  • Roughly two-thirds of farm-based biogas capture systems produce renewable natural gas (RNG) for pipeline injection or transportation fuel, providing significant reductions in air pollution. The remaining facilities produce electricity on site.

Landfill Biogas

  • About 600 U.S. landfills have biogas capture facilities, which capture the biogas produced as organic material in the landfill decomposes.
  • The number of biogas capture facilities at landfills has increased by nearly 20% since 2020.
  • Since 2020, biogas capture capacity from landfills has increased from 148 billion cubic feet (Bcf) to a total of 521 Bcf annually. This amount of energy can meet the electricity use of 3.3 million U.S. homes or fuel 5.2 million passenger vehicles per year.
  • Landfill gas (LFG) projects represent 72% of the nationwide total biogas captured. .
  • While many newer landfill projects are designed to upgrade biogas to RNG, electricity generation remains the end-use of 73% of LFG biogas projects.

Biogas Capture Systems at Wastewater plants

  • The wastewater industry pioneered the use of biogas systems in the U.S. beginning in the 1920s, at first simply to reduce the volume of sludge from wastewater. (Digesting the sludge cuts its volume by half.)
  • Over the decades, wastewater plants began to combust their biogas to create electricity and/or heat for use at the plant. Today, more than 1,200 U.S. wastewater treatment plants use the biogas they capture from sludge to produce the electricity equivalent of 7.3 billion kWh per year.
  • If every suitable wastewater facility installed biogas systems, the sector could capture 171.8 billion cubic feet (Bcf) of biogas each year – enough energy for 1.3 million U.S. households.
  • Wastewater plants usually use their biogas to generate power on-site and put their excess electricity onto the grid, significantly easing electricity load on the grid and reducing costs for municipalities.

Food Waste Biogas Capture Systems

  • About 304 biogas systems in the U.S. convert food waste into renewable energy.
  • Biogas capture systems that convert food scraps energy have increased 19% over the past five years.
  • 118 food waste biogas capture facilities recycle food waste alone and handle over 10 million tons of pre- and post-consumer inedible scraps each year.
  • Some wastewater treatment plants and farm-based biogas capture systems recycle food waste together with their biosolids or manure. This called “codigestion.”
  • About 124 wastewater plants in the U.S. co-digest food waste, recycling 1.1 million tons of food scraps each year.
  • About 62 farms anaerobically co-digest food waste, recycling 1.7 million tons of food scraps.
  • All totaled, these facilities recycle 12.8 million tons of food scraps and other organic waste into over 35 billion cubic feet (Bcf) of biogas a year, enough to cover the year-long energy use of 283,000 U.S. households.

End-use of Biogas: Fuel v. Power

  • About 1,450 (56%) of biogas capture facilities in the U.S. produce electricity (often alongside heat in CHP systems). The remaining 44% upgrade their biogas into renewable natural gas (RNG).
  • By volume, about 52% of captured biogas is used to generate electricity, and 44% of all biogas volume is used to produce fuel in the form of RNG (renewable natural gas). About 4% of captured biogas is used for heat alone or is flared, primarily in the wastewater sector.
  • Those 1,450 facilities generate about 778,000 standard cubic feet per minute (scfm) of biogas used to generate electricity and heat.
  • About 73% of biogas capture facilities at landfills use their biogas to generate electricity, supplying nearly three-quarters of the 778K scfm volume.
  • About 930 (75%) of the 1,241 wastewater plants with biogas capture facilities produce electricity and/or heat from biogas or about 18% of total electricity output from all four biogas sectors.
  • Biogas facilities that generate electricity create about 28.6 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity per year.
  • This output meets the annual electricity needs of nearly 2.7 million U.S. households.
  • If all the full potential of 17,000 additional biogas systems were built out, and that energy was used to generate electricity, these facilities would add capacity of about 220 billion kilowatt-hours per year, or more than 200 baseload power plants of 120 megawatts each.