Greater Commercial Lending (GCL), a company that provides government-guaranteed loans to businesses and organizations in underserved and rural communities, has completed its second $25 million loan for the Aemetis Biogas Central Dairy Digester Project.
The first $25 million loan was completed in October 2022.
The loan, guaranteed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) through the Rural Energy for America Program (REAP), will finance the construction of biogas digesters and related assets for eight dairies located in Stanislaus and Merced counties in California. The digesters capture biomethane from animal waste, which is delivered via pipeline to a central facility that converts the biogas into carbon-negative renewable natural gas (RNG) for use as a transportation fuel.
The second phase of the project will expand Aemetis Biogas from its current seven operational dairy digesters to biogas digesters at 15 dairies, supplying an estimated 400,000 MMBtu per year of RNG. The initial phase of the project, which also included a 40-mile biogas pipeline, was made possible by the first USDA-guaranteed loan completed by GCL.
“We are grateful for our continued working relationship with Greater Commercial Lending, which enables us to expand our operations to improve air quality and reduce carbon pollution,” says Eric McAfee, chairman and CEO of Aemetis. “This project would not have been possible without USDA-guaranteed financing.”
The Aemetis biogas project, when fully built, will connect biogas digesters spanning more than 65 dairy farms and produce more than 1,650,000 MMBtu of renewable natural gas from captured dairy methane each year.
Magnolia Bank of Elizabethtown, Ky., provided the primary funding for the loan. The loan was made to Aemetis Biogas 2 LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Aemetis Inc.
