WASHINGTON – October 28, 2025 – Some of the biogas captured from the Yolo County Landfill in California is now certified carbon negative by the California Air Resources Board (CARB), thanks to the use of LoCI Controls’ technology and the American Biogas Council’s (ABC) Biogas Carbon Accounting Tool (CAT). The carbon accounting tool recognizes all the benefits of this special project which captures an exceptionally high amount of methane gases, preventing them from entering the atmosphere.
Landfills capture gas by vacuuming the gas into a network of perforated pipes within the landfill. LoCI Controls’ automated real-time data and controls systems at the landfill optimize this system in an innovative way which both significantly increases the amount of methane captured from the landfill and also minimizes the amount of gas that escapes into the atmosphere. But older carbon accounting systems don’t allow for this innovative approach, requiring the use of ABC’s Carbon Accounting Tool.
The ABC’s Biogas Carbon Accounting Tool, developed in partnership with EcoEngineers, helped the landfill achieve this record-low score by providing a second tool that validated a score manually calculated by CARB. The use of the ABC tool was verified by third parties and certified by California’s Air Resources Board (CARB) earlier this year.
Landfill biogas collected at most facilities has a low carbon intensity score, but only a select few have reached carbon-negative status. The carbon intensity (CI) score of Yolo County Central Landfill’s biogas, according to CARB is -101 gCO2e/MJ meaning that, if used in a vehicle, it would reduce carbon emissions twice as fast as replacing a gasoline vehicle with a solar or wind powered electric vehicle or not driving the gasoline vehicle at all. CARB has officially recognized this application of LoCI technology with the ABC tool as the most carbon-negative landfill gas pathway in the California Low Carbon Fuel Standard to date.
Because California’s Low Carbon Fuel Standard rewards cleaner fuels, the more negative the score, the more valuable the credits. That means the Yolo County Central Landfill’s project will generate more revenue while also delivering stronger climate benefits — creating a win-win-win for the project, community and the environment.
“We developed the Biogas Carbon Accounting Tool in partnership with EcoEngineers exactly for this kind of use—to provide more precise emissions data for all types of biogas projects allowing them to fully realize their investments,” said ABC Executive Director Patrick Serfass. “If we want to encourage innovation, the tools companies use to be rewarded for doing good, need to be innovative too. It’s exciting to see our efforts to fill gaps that have existed for years pay off so quickly and enable inventive projects, allowing our industry to make more progress generating renewable energy from captured emissions.”
“LoCI’s WellWatcher system provides landfill operations teams with real-time, actionable data that empowers them to make faster, more informed adjustments in the field,” said Peter Quigley, CEO of LoCI Controls. “By combining operator expertise with advanced monitoring and verification tools like the Biogas Carbon Accounting Tool, we helped demonstrate to the California Air Resources Board that the increased emissions reductions were real — showing how collaboration with partners like the American Biogas Council can further increase the value of captured biogas for sites like Yolo County.”
For more information on ABC and the Biogas CAT, visit americanbiogascouncil.org/cat.
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