What We Heard at BUSINESS OF BIOGAS 2026: RNG's Next Chapter Runs on Uptime

The ESI team spent October 20–22 in St. Louis at BUSINESS OF BIOGAS 2026, the American Biogas Council's executive conference. The sessions covered a lot of ground, but the hallway conversations kept circling back to the same few ideas. RNG has more buyers and more policy support than ever. And all of it pays only when the gas actually flows.

Here is what we heard, and where we land.

The market is real, and it is still building

Nobody in the room was debating whether RNG has a future. The talk was about how fast it scales.

The numbers back that up. Fortune Business Insights puts the global RNG market at $17.00 billion in 2026, up from $15.10 billion in 2025, with North America holding 53.31% of it. By the end of 2025, the RNG Coalition counted 570 facilities operating in the U.S. and Canada, 153 under construction, and about 300 more in development.

Our take: More plants means more assets that have to run well for decades. Building them is only the first chapter.

Fleets are already sold

Transportation came up as the proven market. RNG made up 94% of all on-road fuel used in U.S. natural gas vehicles in 2025, according to The Transport Project. That is 755 million gasoline gallon equivalents out of 806 million.

Compressed RNG is the largest product segment worldwide, at 67.88% of the market in 2025.

Data centers were the new name in every conversation

If one topic felt different this year, it was data centers. AI is driving a scramble for reliable power, and biogas is part of that discussion. In a recent interview, the American Biogas Council's executive director called biogas a strong fit for data centers because it can deliver reliability.

The big buyers are moving. Microsoft's San Jose data center uses an Enchanted Rock microgrid for backup power, with RNG procurement starting in 2026. Policy is pushing too. In September, Massachusetts Executive Order 658 required data centers above 25 MW of peak demand to procure new clean generation equal to their annual use, with priority on on-site resources.

Our take: We think this is real, because we have done it. ESI commissioned an islanded landfill gas generator that powers a data center fully off the grid. The lesson from that job is simple. Data centers will buy biogas power only from operators who can hold it steady.

Policy got bigger, and more demanding

The federal picture drew plenty of discussion. In April, EPA finalized the highest Renewable Fuel Standard obligations in the program's history: 25.82 billion RINs for 2026 and 25.98 billion for 2027. Cellulosic biofuel, the D3 category where RNG does most of its work, is set at 1.36 billion RINs for 2026 and 1.43 billion for 2027. D3 RIN futures traded at $2.78 in July 2026.

The same rule removed renewable electricity from the RFS. For landfill gas owners weighing power generation against pipeline-quality RNG, that changes the math.

The One Big Beautiful Bill Act extended the Section 45Z Clean Fuel Production Credit through the end of 2029. 45Z pays on a sliding scale tied to carbon intensity, so lower CI earns more. Treasury released proposed 45Z rules in early 2026, and the details are still settling. The clean electricity credits, 45Y and 48E, remain available to qualifying biogas projects.

More may be coming. The bipartisan Renewable Natural Gas Incentive Act (S. 1252 / H.R. 2596) would add a $1.00-per-gallon credit for RNG used as vehicle fuel. It has been introduced, not passed.

At the state level, California's amended Low Carbon Fuel Standard is in its first full compliance year under the new rules. Oregon, Washington, and Canada's Clean Fuel Regulations reward low-CI fuel as well.

Our take: Every one of these programs rewards performance. None of them pays for a plant that is down.

Where we land: operations decides who wins

Here is the point we kept making at our own table. The incentives are bigger than they have ever been, but they are all paid on gas produced and delivered. When an RNG facility goes down, the biogas gets flared. That adds emissions and costs revenue.

Data center buyers raise the bar again, because their power cannot blink. And carbon intensity is not fixed at design. It reflects how the plant runs: energy use, methane losses, and time spent flaring.

The industry spent the last decade proving it could build RNG plants. The next decade belongs to the operators who keep them running.

Talk to ESI

ESI keeps landfill gas and RNG facilities running, from preventive maintenance to troubleshooting when something goes wrong. If your site needs to capture more of what this market now pays for, let's talk.

Sources

• American Biogas Council: BUSINESS OF BIOGAS 2026

• Fortune Business Insights: RNG market size

• Trucknews: RNG was 94% of NGV fuel in 2025 (Transport Project, RNG Coalition data)

• Grist: Biogas and data centers (American Biogas Council)

• Data Center Dynamics: Microsoft San Jose RNG backup power